Menua
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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