ARCIHIAEOlOGY NEWs)

Drawing of cylinder design on the larger version of the Rusa seal

reconstructed from impressions . The scene is a procession of a lion, a
principal figure holding a staff and gesturing with an upturned palm, an
attendant holding a parasol with bell-like attachments, and finally a
trident. The inscription reads "this is the seal of Rusa , son of ArgiSti."
Height, 2.6 centimeters.

Bulla stamped with the larger version of the seal of King Rusa II, son of Argishti,

dating to the seventh century B.C. Height, 3.26 centimeters.

Bones and Bullae: An Enigma from Bastam, Iran

In the last three campaigns at the Urartian
citadel of Bastam , Iran, the Teheran Divi
sion of the German Archaeological Institute
recently has unearthed abundant, if con
fusing , evidence of a peculiar institution in
this early Iron Age kingdom (ca. 830-ca. 600
B. c.). Urartu , one of the great monarchies of
the ancient Near East, once extended over
what are now parts of Iran. Turkey and the
Soviet Un ion. Hundreds of thousands of
burned and broken bones have been dis
covered in a row of rooms at Bastam;
among them were scattered small clay tags
or bullae , bearing impressions of the king 's
seal. These bones come from an extraordi
nary diversity of w ild and domesticated
an imals . Most were curiously decapitated
before their remains were deposited in the
chambers. Their quantity is staggering and
interpretation is both somewhat problem
atic and controversial.
These bizarre finds are not without an
tecedants . In the autumn of 1898, the Ger
man archaeologists Waldemar Belck and
C. F. Lehmann-Haupt opened a number of
trenches at Toprakkale . an Urart ian fortress
on the outskirts of Van in Turkey. In one of
these, they came upon layered deposits of
burned animal and human bones in such
massive numbers that they termed the area
Totenhaus , the " House of the Dead. " Skull
fragments were absent leading Belck and
Lehmann-Haupt to conclude that the bones
were relics of temple sacrifices . They pub
lished no plan or systematic description of
their findings, but did note that clay bullae
were found among the bones . Their rather
startling claim that the Urartians practiced
human sacrifice was ignored by
scholars-w ith some justice, as it now ap
pears . In 1949, Soviet excavators at Karmir
Blur uncovered another massive collection
of bones, packed into a small chamber that
lies between two storerooms near the cen
ter of the citadel. Boris B. Piotrovsky, di
rector of the excavations and currently di
rector of the Hermitage in Leningrad , also
came to the conclusion that these were sac
rificial remains . Here too skulls were ab
sent as well as the feet of the larger ani
mals. But no human bones were found , nor
are any bullae mentioned in the site reports .
The discoveries at Bastam have much in
common with Toprakkale and Karmir Blur,
but they also provide new documentary and
zoological evidence that makes the mystery
of their nature even more intricate . Bastam
is an enormous site with indisputable ties to
the Urartian monarchy. Its core is a fortress
constructed in several levels along a
mountain ridge that separates the Oara Zia
Edin plain from the upper reaches of the Aq
Chai Valley. An inscription discovered on a
nearby bridge records that " Rusa 's Small
City '-Rusai-URU.TUR-was founded
here by Rusa II . who reigned at the begin
ning of the second quarter of the seventh
century B.C. Bastam is one of the few places
where Urartian administrative records have
been found , suggesting that it was one of
the kingdom 's more important centers in the
final century of Urartu's existence. Around
600 B.C., the fortress was violently de
stroyed by fire, but not before the settlement
had been abandoned and the citadel itself
stripped of its most precious objects.
A major defensive wall runs down the
face of the mountain between the upper
most part of the fortress and a middle sec
tion , which served as a large storage area
and possibly the site of a temple . The three
bone rooms are located on either side of
this wall immediately downhill from a gate
complex. All of the walls are grounded on
bedrock into which the Urartians carved
special steps to form footings. The lower
part of the walls was constructed of care
fully laid stone, wh ich made a base for the
mudbrick superstructure. Since there is a
considerable difference in elevation be
tween the uphill and downhill sides of the
room , the lowest floor joined the lower wall
at a point well above the ground . When fire
destroyed the fortress , this floor collapsed
into the unused cellar . The bones and bul
lae, which must have lain together in the
room overhead, slid down into pockets
along the downhill side of the room below,
where they were found mixed together.

Novem ber/ Decembe r 1979 ', ;\

 Excavating the largest bone room . The black soil marks the fallen floor; the bone layer, rising over a row of mudbricks , can be seen above the worker.

KllO,\.IEnRS 2S 59 room and approximately 90 in each of the

,"'lLES 1.5 59
Black Sea
URARTU
Lake
Van
ASSYRIA
Among more than half a million frag
ments, Joachim Boessneck of the Institute
of Palaeoanatomy in Munich has iden
tified the bones of domestic and wild sheep,
cattle , gazelle , wild goat, deer and onager,
a small Asiatic wild ass. Skull and jaw frag
ments as well as parts of the lower legs
were extremely rare. Sheep and goat were
found in all three chambers , but gazelle and
deer only in the largest room . Cattle were
most prevalent in the northwestern room,
Karmir Blur
QARA ZJA EDIN PLAIN
AQ CHAI VAllEY
Bamm.
ToprakkaLl
Van
Lake
Rezslyeh
in size and detail. Other seals are rare and
yet entirely absent from the middle one. The
remains of a few dogs lay on the uphill side
of the largest room. Since they were found
with their skulls, they were probably in these
rooms for different reasons than the other
animals-perhaps as watchdogs.
Clay bullae have been found at many
Near Eastern sites, but never have they
appeared in such great quantity as at Bas
tam . Almost 1,400 have been discovered in
these rooms : more than 1,100 in the largest
smaller ones. The bullae consist of small
lumps of clay in a variety of shapes ranging
from elongated pyramids to tear-shaped
wafers. They had been formed over knots
on cords that were once clearly attached to
something. Ninety percent bore stamp or
cylinder seal impressions. Since the same
stamp always appears with a given cylinder
when both stamp and seal occur on the
same piece, it is probable that the impres
sions were made with a single cylinder
shaped seal-the side was used for rolling
and the end for stamping. The integrity of
the lump of clay and the sealing impressed
on it guaranteed that no one had tampered
with the object to which it was tied .
Although impreSSions on the Bastam
bullae come from several different seals,
one predominates. It bears the inscription of
Bastam's founder : "This is the seal of Rusa,
son of Argi~ti. " There are at least two
versions of this seal which vary only slightly
few appear on more than one or two bullae .
They include a stamp dominated by a
winged disc, and stamps depicting mixed
beings-mostly a winged horse or
centaur-facing left or right. A common
theme of cylinder impressions is the " sa
cred tree," linked by inscriptions with an
official entitled "A.NIN," generally thought
to mean "crown prince." An impreSSion of
one version of the Rusa seal also appears
on a bullae found at Toprakkale, and the
winged horse is seen on letters at Kamir
Blur. Since the authority of the king and his
high officials was involved in sealing the

54 ARCHAEOLOGY
 bullae, it seems likely that the bone rooms
had more than local significance. The pres
ence of the same sealings at all three major
Urartian sites clearly suggests an intimate
relationship between the crown and these
particular locations.
There is good reason to believe that the
vicinity of the bone rooms represented one
of the more literate parts of Bastam . Only a
single tablet fragment has actually been
found in the bone layer itself, and its four
partially preserved lines, which begin the
text , are disappointingly uninformative :
"One sheep, Mr. Aru-xxx; one sheep , Mr.
Menu- xxx ; one sheep , Mr . UI-xxx ; one
sheep, xxx , ... " But the upper levels of fill
from the same room, which probably be
longed to a second story . have yielded G--=-==:--
I , , ~
'" H.
three quite different bullae with more sub
stantial inscriptions written on their sides.
Plan of the inner citadel wall area showing where
They record the names of officials and their concentrations of bones and bullae were discovered at Bastam.
lands ; one describes events which took
place in a certain year-presumably the
Urartian method of recording a date. None
of these inscriptions explains the meaning
of the bone rooms . but at least they demon
strate that scribes were at work somewhere
nearby- probably just upstairs.
What did these bullae seal ? The excava
tions at Bastam provide no direct answer. If
whatever they were attached to was once
present in the bone rooms. it has now van
ished. Perhaps the bullae were attached to
baskets or sacks in which the bones were
Stamp impression of the larger
transported. Poss ibly they were tied to Rusa seal, dating to the seventh
perishable documents such as skins or century B.C. dep icting a standing
writing boards . In Assyria similar bullae lion. Diameter of the stamp ,
1.4 centimeters.
have been found inscribed w ith cuneiform
notes listing quantities of men, sheep and
horses-but clearly their strings could Inscribed bulla mentioning me land of Nuniba, dating
never have been attached to these animate to the seventh century B.C. Length , 3.5 centimeters .
subjects . If the bullae sealed actual docu
ments, notes written on bullae would give
an idea of what they contained without any were violently destroyed by fire , many of the the bones. The king was primarily involved ,
need to break the sealing. This hypothesis bones do not appear to have burned, which and to a lesser extent other people took part
would account for the rarity of cuneiform suggests that they were protected by meat in this unusual process. The two bullae
documents of an administrative nature in and thus untouched by flames . But this mentioning Nuniba indicate that other parts
Urartu : the bulk of the correspondence theory also has its difficulties. Since the of the kingdom also contributed. But none of
might have been written on some perish majority of the sealings were made with the these bits of information explains why the
able material. A versatile function like this seal of Bastam 's founder, it seems incon remains of thousands of decapitated ani
seems appropriate for bullae. since they ceivable that the meat stored during his mals were kept for decades in Urartian for
are found unassociated with bones else reign survived until Bastam was destroyed tresses . Perhaps they represent an ac
where at Bastam and at other Urartian sites . decades later. Additionally , it the one-to cumulation of a peculiar kind of trash , which
The bullae from the bone layer. however. one ratio of animals to bullae is correct, then was nondisposable for some magical or
are unusual in that cuneiform notes on their more than 1.100 carcasses would have ritual reason . Anthropological literature is
sides are extremely rare. The only two been stored by being hung from hooks in a replete with examples of belief in a symbolic
examples so far unearthed record the room with only 77 square meters of floor connection between people and the ani
name of a land called Nuniba-a prove space , wh ile the cellar below remained mals they eat. If it were thought that leftov
nience rather than a commodity. empty and scribes worked on another floor. ers from the king's table could be used to
Another possible explanation for the bul Even the distribution of the bones and their put a curse on him should they fall into the
lae is that they were tied to the carcasses of condition does not indicate meat storage . wrong hands, it would be important to keep
animals and served as a kind of property They are shattered into tiny pieces which this refuse safe . But this is pure specula
marker or inspection sticker. If this is true, it are mixed together in a way that does not tion, and it is all too easy to ascribe ritual
raises another greater problem : what was reflect the anatomy of the an imals . If meat significance to archaeological evidence
stored in these rooms, bones or meat? The had covered the bones when the citadel that is not understood . There are more
excavators of Toprakkale and Karmir Blur collapsed , the bones probably would have bone rooms to be found at Urartu, and one
favored bones; some of those who have remained more intact, less jumbled, and of them may someday provide a more
worked with the Bastam material say meat. less closely pressed together. satisfactory explanation.
Proponents of the meat hypothesis argue It seems reasonable to assume that the PAUL ZIMANSKY
that the number of bullae in each room bullae discovered at Bastam-whether tied
seems to correspond to the number of ani to documents or baskets-had something University of California
mals. Furhermore , although the rooms to do with the distribution or disposition of Berkeley, CA

November/ December 1979 55