Editing Van, Turkey (section)

===Urartu===
[[File:Xerxes Cuneiform Van.JPG|thumb|[[Xerxes I inscription at Van|Inscription of Xerxes the Great]] on the cliffs below Van castle]]
Under the ancient name of ''[[Tushpa]]'', Van was the capital of the [[Urartu|Urartian kingdom]] in the 9th century BCE. The early settlement was centered on the steep-sided bluff now known as [[Van Fortress|Van Castle]] (''Van Kalesi''), close to the edge of Lake Van and a few kilometers west of the modern city. Urartian [[cuneiform]] inscriptions dating to the 8th and 7th centuries BCE have been found here. The name 'Van' comes from the [[Urartianlanguage|Urartian]] endonym ''Biaina''.<ref>Edmund Herzig, Marina Kurkchiyan, ''The Armenians: Past And Present In The Making Of National Identity'', p. 31.</ref> A "conservative" estimate by [[Charles A. Burney]] put the population of [[Tushpa]] and its suburbs at 50,000.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Burney |first1=Charles |author1-link=Charles A. Burney |title=Urartian Irrigation Works |journal=[[Anatolian Studies]] |date=December 1972 |volume=22 |pages=183 |doi=10.2307/3642562 |jstor=3642562 |s2cid=131657710 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/anatolian-studies/article/abs/urartian-irrigation-works/B4FEB0EC0A1B171F760D30841C29E19A |language=en |issn=2048-0849 |quote=The construction of the Menua canal would have made a population of fifty thousand in Van itself, the city and its garden suburbs, a conservative estimate. Since the population in the nineteenth century A.D. exceeded that figure, there is no need to suggest a smaller population in the Urartian capital.26 This may have reached its highest level under Rusa II...}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Çevik |first1=Özlem |title=The Change of Settlement Patterns in Lake Van Basin: Ecological Constrains caused by Highland Landscape |journal=[[:de:Altorientalische Forschungen|Altorientalische Forschungen]] |date=January 2005 |volume=32 |issue=1 |doi=10.1524/aofo.2005.32.1.74 |s2cid=163661607 |quote=According to Burney's conservative estimate, the population of Tushpa was 50.000 people.59 [Burney (1972,182).]}}</ref>