The Kelashin Stele ( ku, کێلەشین) (also Kelishin or Keli-Shin; from

Kurdish Language Kurdish (, ) is a language or a group of languages spoken by Kurds in the geo-cultural region of Kurdistan and the Kurdish diaspora. Kurdish constitutes a dialect continuum, belonging to Western Iranian languages in the Indo-European language ...

: Blue Stone) found in

Kelashin Kelashin ( ku, Kelaşin ,که‌لاشن) is a mountain village in Kurdistan Region Iraq, near the Kelashin Pass (2,981m) to Iran, some 80 km south-west of Lake Urmia. The Kelashin Stele found there bears an important Urartian-Assyrian As ...

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...

, bears an important

Urartian Urartian or Vannic is an extinct Hurro-Urartian language which was spoken by the inhabitants of the ancient kingdom of Urartu (''Biaini'' or ''Biainili'' in Urartian), which was centered on the region around Lake Van and had its capital, Tushpa, ...

Assyrian Assyrian may refer to: * Assyrian people, the indigenous ethnic group of Mesopotamia. * Assyria, a major Mesopotamian kingdom and empire. ** Early Assyrian Period ** Old Assyrian Period ** Middle Assyrian Empire ** Neo-Assyrian Empire * Assyrian ...

bilingual text dating to c. 800 BC, first described by

Friedrich Eduard Schulz Friedrich Eduard Schulz (1799–1829, also known as Friedrich Edward Schulz) was a German philosopher and orientalist, who was one of the first to uncover evidence of the Kingdom of Urartu. Research on Urartu In 1827, the French scholar ...

in 1827. Part of Schulz's notes were lost when he was killed by

Kurd ug:كۇردلار Kurds ( ku, کورد ,Kurd, italic=yes, rtl=yes) or Kurdish people are an Iranian peoples, Iranian ethnic group native to the mountainous region of Kurdistan in Western Asia, which spans southeastern Turkey, northwestern Ir ...

ish "bandits", and later expeditions were either prevented by weather conditions or Kurdish brigands, so that a copy (

latex Latex is an emulsion (stable dispersion) of polymer microparticles in water. Latexes are found in nature, but synthetic latexes are common as well. In nature, latex is found as a milky fluid found in 10% of all flowering plants (angiosperms ...

squeeze) of the inscription could only be made in 1951 by G. Cameron, and again in 1976 by an Italian party under heavy military protection. The inscription describes the acquisition of the city of

Musasir Muṣaṣir (Assyrian cuneiform: and variants, including Mutsatsir, Akkadian for ''Exit of the Serpent/Snake''), in Urartian Ardini was an ancient city of Urartu, attested in Assyrian sources of the 9th and 8th centuries BC. It was acquired by ...

(Ardini) by the Urartian king

Ishpuini Ishpuini (also Ishpuinis) () was king of Urartu. He succeeded his father, Sarduri I, who moved the capital to Tushpa (Van). Ishpuini conquered the Mannaean city of Musasir, which was then made the religious center of the empire. The main temple ...

References

Warren C. Benedict, ''The Urartian-Assyrian Inscription of Kelishin'', Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 81, No. 4 (1961), pp. 359–385. 9th-century BC steles 1827 archaeological discoveries Hurro-Urartian languages Akkadian literature Ancient Near East steles {{Semitic-lang-stub