Laturs

Laturs were an ancient urban civilization that dominated the central river valley of Thyria from roughly 1700 to 300 BCE. The name Laturs derives from their internal designation Laturim, and the term is used today by archaeologists to describe the culture that constructed a network of fortified cities along the Veya and Nahar rivers. Their core region featured multi-storied granaries, monumental staircases, and extensive irrigation works.

Society was organized around a middle-lower noble class and a large artisan and farmer base. The Laturs developed a script, ceramic traditions, and metalworking techniques that enabled long-distance trade with neighboring regions. They practiced a state religion centered on a pantheon of storm and fertility deities, with public temples and seasonal festivals.

Economy: agriculture with surplus for trade; crafts: bronze weapons, tools, jewelry; trade routes extended to ports on the western sea. Urban planning included grid-pattern streets and water storage reservoirs. Their writing system, largely deciphered from inscriptions, records civic administrations, religious rites, and commercial transactions.

Archaeology: major sites include the capital city of Varesh and the hilltop sanctuary complex at Sorelle. Excavations since the 19th century uncovered citadel walls, tombs, and a rich corpus of inscriptions. The civilization declined due to a combination of drought, political fragmentation, and external pressures in the mid-1st millennium BCE.

Legacy: Latur forms influenced regional architecture and ritual practice in successive cultures. Modern scholarship relies on typological studies of pottery, inscriptions, and stratigraphic dating to reconstruct the Latur chronology. No single tradition has fully resolved all aspects of Latur society, but consensus emphasizes a complex, trade-oriented polity with enduring cultural innovations.