Last Learner of Urartian: The Remarkable Story of Mehmet Kuşman скачать в хорошем качестве

Last Learner of Urartian: The Remarkable Story of Mehmet Kuşman

Mehmet Kuşman: The Man Who Mastered Urartian Reading, One of the Twelve, and Solely Knows How to Write It Mehmet Kuşman, one of the twelve individuals capable of reading Urartian, holds the exclusive knowledge of writing it. He was born in 1940 in Gürpınar district of Van, Turkey. After completing his mandatory military service of 24 months, upon returning to his village Çavuştepe, he encountered archaeologists who had come from Istanbul for excavations on Mount Bol. Kuşman's curiosity grew as ancient Urartian inscriptions were discovered. He was surprised that the excavators couldn't read the inscriptions and decided to learn it himself. Despite being told 'You can't learn it with just an elementary school diploma,' Kuşman didn't give up. Upon the recommendation of his teachers, he began sketching Urartian inscriptions at Van Fortress in a notebook. Wanting to create an alphabet but realizing the inscriptions in Van were insufficient, Kuşman found a solution by traveling to countries that had traces of Urartian. He started with Syria and Iran, even entering Armenia illegally due to lack of a passport. He documented the Urartian inscriptions from the countries he visited, thus completing the alphabet in 3 years. His determination caught the attention of academics, leading to an invitation to a symposium in Istanbul. At the symposium attended by scholars and archaeologists, Kuşman showed the alphabet he had created to one of them. When asked, 'Where did you find this?' he replied, 'I didn't find it, I made it.' Initially, it was hard for people to believe him. Later, when it was understood that he had created it himself, he received applause, congratulations, and a sum of money for his future work. While Kuşman completed the alphabet in 3 years, mastering the language took a whopping 22 years. He expressed the difficulty arising from the alphabet being based on syllables, not individual letters. Since 1962, Mehmet Kuşman has been serving as a guardian at Çavuştepe Fortress. Despite retiring in 2005, he has continued to work as a voluntary guardian since then. He also earns his living by making and selling embroidered stones. Kuşman, who considers Çavuştepe like his own child, plans to retire permanently starting from the following year.