Ruins of the Van Fortress

The Van Fortress, also known as the Van Citadel, is a massive stone fortification built in the Kingdom of Urartu in the 9th–7th centuries BC. The fortress is about 1,800 m long, 120 m high and 80 m wide. The lower parts of its walls were built of basalt, the rest of mud brick. The fortress lies west of the city of Van and east of Lake Van.

Near the fortress, on a smooth section of rock, is carved the trilingual inscription of the Persian king Xerxes (5th century BC), in Old Persian, Babylonian and Elamite. It was first published by the French orientalist Eugène Burnouf in 1836, and this text helped to decipher Old Persian cuneiform inscriptions.

The photograph shows the ruins of walls and towers on top of a rocky hill.