Minuahinili

 place with historical importance, archaeological site, ancient ruins

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The fortified complex located just southeast of modern Karakoynlu and southwest of modern Taşburun is identified as the important Urartian center of Minuahinili, built by King Minua in the late 9th century BC, as indicated in his rock-cut inscription from the northwestern corner of the site. The site was investigated in the 19th century but poorly documented until the treatment by Özfirat in 2017. This reveled an Urartian hill fortification nestled amid three ridge castles, and protected by walls between them. The site also includes an Urartian rock-cut tomb within it and four areas of Iron Age graves outside the fortifications to the south. It is also believed that the lower city associated with the fortified complex stretched westwards towards Karakoyunlu across the plain, as far as Koruktepe. Minuahinili was designed as an Urartian settlement in the area of the Eriqua principality, whose capital Luhiuni has been identified as the Melikli fortified complex some 6 km to the west-southwest.

A. Özfirat, “Eriqua and Minuahinili: An Early Iron Age-Nairi Kingdom and Urartian Province on the Northern Slope of Mt Ağrı (Settlement Complexes at Melekli and Karakoyunlu),” Turkish Academy of Sciences Journal of Archaeology 21 (2017) 63-92.