Ancient Armenia: Prehistory, Urartu, and the Formation of the Armenian People
What to master
This domain spans the Neolithic-to-Iron Age cultures of the Armenian Highland (early farming settlements such as those of the Ararat plain and the Lake Van basin), the kingdom of Urartu, and the ethnogenesis of the Armenians. Candidates should know that Urartu (Assyrian Uruatri/Urartu; the kingdom called Biainili in its own inscriptions) was centered on Lake Van from roughly the 9th to the 6th century BCE, with capitals at Arzashkun/Tushpa and later Rusahinili (Toprakkale). Key kings include Sarduri I, Menua, Argishti I, and Rusa II; Urartian is a non-Indo-European, Hurro-Urartian language written in cuneiform. Know that the ethnogenesis of Armenians is generally placed in the late 2nd to early 1st millennium BCE, combining a Proto-Armenian Indo-European-speaking population with the linguistic substrate of the Highland; the name Hay and Hayasa-Azzi texts, and the Persian term Armina, are frequently tested.
Traps
Do not equate Urartians with Armenians: Urartian is not an ancestor of Armenian, and Urartu fell (c. 590s BCE, likely under Median/Scythian pressure) before the Armenian kingdom emerges. Do not confuse the Armenian etymological legend of Hayk with a datable historical event, and do not attribute the naming of Armenia to the Armenians themselves (it is exogenous, via Persian/Greek).
Rule of thumb
Separate three layers: archaeological cultures (prehistoric), the Urartian state (political, non-Armenian-speaking), and Armenian ethnogenesis (linguistic and ethnic). Questions often blend them.
Worked example
If asked which language family Urartian belongs to, reject Indo-European and choose Hurro-Urartian; then note that Armenian is Indo-European, so Urartian cannot be its ancestor.