Menua (
ariations exist, also rendered Meinua or Minua, was the fifth known
king
King is a royal title given to a male monarch. A king is an Absolute monarchy, absolute monarch if he holds unrestricted Government, governmental power or exercises full sovereignty over a nation. Conversely, he is a Constitutional monarchy, ...
of
Urartu from c. 810 BC to approximately 786 BC. In Armenian, Menua is rendered as ''Menua''. The name Menua may be connected etymologically to the
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...
names
Minos
Main injector neutrino oscillation search (MINOS) was a particle physics experiment designed to study the phenomena of neutrino oscillations, first discovered by a Super-Kamiokande (Super-K) experiment in 1998. Neutrinos produced by the NuMI ...
and
Minyas.
A younger son of the preceding Urartian King,
Ishpuini, Menua was adopted as co-ruler by his father in the last years of his reign. Menua enlarged the kingdom through numerous wars against the neighbouring countries and left many inscriptions across the region, by far the most of any Urartian ruler.
He organized a centralised administrative structure, fortified a number of towns and constructed
fortress
A fortification (also called a fort, fortress, fastness, or stronghold) is a military construction designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from L ...
es. Amongst these was Menuakhinili located near
Mount Ararat
Mount Ararat, also known as Masis or Mount Ağrı, is a snow-capped and dormant compound volcano in Eastern Turkey, easternmost Turkey. It consists of two major volcanic cones: Greater Ararat and Little Ararat. Greater Ararat is the highest p ...
(its exact location is uncertain, perhaps at
Bulakbaşı, east of modern-day
Iğdır).
He briefly co-ruled with his son, Inushpua, but was succeeded by another son,
Argishti I.
Menua also had a daughter named Tariria, after whom a certain vineyard was named Taririakhinli.
Apart from the
Kepenek Castle inscription, another inscription proving the existence of the Urartian Kingdom in the geography of
Muş is the
Alazlı/Tirmet inscription. The inscription in question is located 25.5 km east of Muş province and 6.2 km south of
Korkut district. In the inscription, the war fought by the Urartian king Menua is mentioned:
It is believed that Menua founded the city of
Manazkert (Malazgirt).
Menua Canal
Menua developed a
canal
Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface ...
and
irrigation
Irrigation (also referred to as watering of plants) is the practice of applying controlled amounts of water to land to help grow crops, landscape plants, and lawns. Irrigation has been a key aspect of agriculture for over 5,000 years and has bee ...
system that stretched across the kingdom. The most significant of these was a 45-mile canal from the Hoşap valley to Van, which was named the
Menua Canal after the king. It flowed at a rate of 1500 to 3000 litres of water per second, depending on the time of the year. Several of these canals are still in use today.
Menua became the first of
Urartu's kings who designed and constructed irrigation networks that contributed to farming and, in part, to the development of the vineyard in
Urartu. Menuapili canal was about 72 km length. The canal was 4.5 meters wide and 1.5 meters deep, and reached the capital of Urartu,
Tosp (Van).

The canal passes in some places along the slopes, dug with rocks, and in the lower parts of the canal it was built especially from huge stones and over a wide and unbreakable wall with a height of 15–20 meters. Menuapili of which there are still many parts existing, working to supply irrigation and drinking water to the city of
Van and the surrounding villages, is one of the surviving monuments of ancient Armenian culture and one of the oldest medieval civilization famous constructions. Menuapili is one of the oldest major canals in the
Middle East
The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq.
The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...
, for that reason it was called by many historians a river.
The
Assyrian king
Sennacherib
Sennacherib ( or , meaning "Sin (mythology), Sîn has replaced the brothers") was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 705BC until his assassination in 681BC. The second king of the Sargonid dynasty, Sennacherib is one of the most famous A ...
is well known like Urartian king Menua in constructing hydraulic engineering works some of these well-constructed tunnels are still in use today. Sennacherib used the expertise of Urartian technicians since they were well known for their skill in constructing hydraulic installations. The biggest canal he build was only 19 km in length comparing with Menua's canal which was 72 km in length. Urartu's cultural development in the water sector has had a considerable impact on the development of northern Mesopotamia and the same cultural field of Assyria. The flow of irrigation canals is from north to south, from Urartu to Assyria, i.e. from the
Armenian Highland to
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary of ...
. Menua was one of the candidates to whom the title "Shinarar” i.e. builder can be given legally, and when Menua died in 780 B.C. Urartu was empire and equaled to his strong opponent Assyria.
[Tovmassian, Bedros, Patmaqagh]
See also
*
List of kings of Urartu
*
Malazgirt
*
Menua Canal
References
{{authority control
Kings of Urartu
9th-century BC monarchs
8th-century BC monarchs
9th-century BC births
Year of death unknown