It seems that Argishti, Sarduri and Rusa were too slow to take advantage of their position. Time worked rather against Urartu. At the end of the USh - the beginning of the 7th centuries. BC. the unstable unity of the Indo-European peoples of Asia Minor and Transcaucasia under the leadership of Urartu was shaken by the appearance here of numerous nomadic tribes of the Cimmerians and Scythians, who caused considerable damage to the country. All attempts by the last kings of the Van kingdom, after the name of Lake Van, to subjugate these peoples to their influence were unsuccessful; moreover, the Scythians eventually made an alliance with the Assyrians. The situation became hopeless; around 640 BC King of Urartu Sarduri III voluntarily recognized himself as subject to Assyria. And 30 years later Urartu was conquered by the Medes.
The history of Urartu, covering about three centuries (900-600 BC), is filled with bright and dramatic events. The confrontation between Urartu and Assyria played an important role in the history of Western Asia. It was the Urartians who forced the Assyrians to strain their strength, to rebuild the economy and society on a military footing. These measures made the Assyrian war machine unusually formidable, but deprived it of a solid foundation. The desperate struggle of the Kingdom of Van with the greatest of the Asian powers gave the necessary respite and time to create their own states to the young peoples of the Iranian Highlands - the Medes and Iranians. Who knows whether the civilization of Ancient Greece would have been able to develop later if the Assyrian armies had come to the Asia Minor coast of the Aegean Sea?
Two and a half thousand years ago, the Iranian king Darius I ordered his servants to inscribe a long inscription on a high sheer rock, which is called Behistunskaya after the name of the neighboring village. It is impossible to read the inscription from below - 105 meters separate it from the ground. The first European travelers, in order to get acquainted with the inscription, were forced to use the help of dexterous Iranian boys, who reached the farthest corners of the 22-meter inscription and sketched the ancient letters.
It is clear that the inscription on the rock was not intended for human eyes. At the same time, Darius tells in it about events well known to the people of his country: how he became the king of Iran by killing the impostor Gaumata, who had seized the throne six months earlier. To whom did Darius want to tell about what had happened? Probably the gods and eternity. Obviously, the new king attached great importance to his victory over Gaumata and wanted to keep her memory forever. The supreme god of the Iranians, Ah-uramazda, is depicted on a stone illustration for an inscription with a raised right hand blessing Darius; with his left, he hands Darius a ring - a sign of royal power. Darius believed that the gods themselves elevated him to the throne, entrusting him with the task of saving and strengthening the state, and he was able to complete this task. The events described in the Behi-stun inscription really strongly influenced the course of the history of the Ancient World. Their origins, however, date back to much older times.
