Fig. 1: Waldemar Belck, and Urartian pithoi behind, possibly in Van
Schachner, 2009, p. 260, Abb. 248
Belck was occupied with copper mining as a chemist for the German company Siemens in Transcaucasia before he arrived at the eastern parts of the Ottoman Empire and at the Van region (Belck, 1893, pp. 61-82). The discoveries of Belck including cemeteries, prehistoric burials, ancient ruins and cuneiform inscriptions caught the attention of ancient historian and linguist Carl Friedrich Lehmann. As the archaeological materials discovered by Belck coincided with Lehmann’s areas of interest, the two met and started to work together from the 1890s onwards (Lehmann-Haupt, 2015, p. 7). Henceforth, the names of these two men were often mentioned together in the history of Urartian studies.
Belck first obtained a permit from the Ottoman State for his initial research in the region of Van in 1891. A telegram sent by the Ottoman State to the provinces of Van and Trabz...


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