At the end of the 2nd Millennium BC the Urartians around Lake Van and Mount Ararat rose in power forming the Kingdom of Urartu. During the 11th and 10th centuries BC, the kingdom eventually encompassed a region stretching from the Caucasus Mountains in the north, to the borders of northern Assyria and northern Ancient Iran in the south, and controlled much of eastern Anatolia. Some scientists consider Urartu to be a re-consolidation of earlier Hurrian populations mainly due to linguistic factors but this view is not universally held.Benedict, Warren C., "Urartians and Hurrians", Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 80, no. 2, pp. 100–04, 1960
