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Monument and Society: Tigranakert of Artsakh
http://asbarez.com/107365/monument-and-society-tigranakert-of-artsakh/
Friday, December 28th, 2012 | Posted by Contributor
Some of the excavations underway in Tigranakert
BY HAMLET PETROSYAN
The Hellenistic city of Tigranakert is located in the internationally
unrecognized republic of Nagorno Karabakh (old Armenian name of which
is Artsakh), which has proclaimed its independence at the beginning of
the 90s of the last century after the Armenian-Azerbaijani war. The
discovery of Tigranakert is one of the most successful undertakings of
the Armenian cultural heritage in terms of inclusion of this heritage
into the current cultural processes. The initiative to discover the
city was a civic initiative to reveal to the Armenian and
international scientific and political circles, that `historical
excursus' of Azerbaijan about the idea the Armenians came to Nagorno
Karabakh only in the 19th century, was a political hoax, via ignoring
the presence of Armenians during last two thousand years in Nagorno
Karabakh and surroundings, witnessed by many Greek and Roman (Strabo,
Pliny the Elder, Plutarch, Ptolemy, Dio Cassius), Armenian, Arabic,
Persian, Georgian historians, several thousands of Armenian
inscriptions of the 7th-18th centuries, and so on.
Prof. Hamlet Petrosyan, Chair of the Department of Cultural Studies,
Yerevan State University
Before the archaeological research only legends were known about this
city. Despite on certain bibliographic data and some citations by
certain authors of the 19th century about the remnants of a city built
by Tigran the Great (95-55 BC), in the first century BC, located 30km
north-east from the city of Stepanakert, in proximity to the former
Azerbaijani city of Aghdam, only two structures were visible on the
location: a fortress built in 18th century and a small building with
an open hall.
During the first stage of the research I have collected all the
bibliographical data that was available about the location. Turned out
that Armenian sources starting from the 7th century are citing not
only one, but two Tigranakerts in this territory, moreover the
citations are not in stories about Tigran the Great, but in
descriptions of events of the 7-8 centuries. It was obvious, that
irrespective of after what Tigran they were named (several kings are
known by the name of Tigran - from 6th century BC to the 1st century
AD) in the 7th century there were two settlements at this location
that were called Tigranakert. The comparison of this data with the
folk legends as well as with travelers' portrayals made possible to
assert that Tigranakert that interests us is located on the border of
merging of Artsakh mountain range with steppe, on the road to ancient
Georgian kingdom Iberia's capital city of Tbghis-Tbilisi, in the
current of the second largest river of Artakh - Kahchenaget. Based on
this research in 2005 an expedition formed by my initiative consisting
of experts of archaeology of bronze age, ancient and middle ages set
for an archaeological research of the area. The expedition examined
the territory with radius of 10km where Khachenaget gets out into the
steppe, photographing in detail every monument, describing visible
structures and archaeological layers and the archaeological material
on the surface. Based on all of this the archaeological map of the
area was created with presentation of all monuments by type and
chronology. This data and the comparative analysis of previously
organized archaeological research, including research done by
Azerbaijanis, gave us the ability to pinpoint two large settlements -
Shahbulagh and Gyavur Kala, that could be the remnants of ancient
Tigranakert. The third stage was the topographical,
architectural-archaeological examination of the remnants in the area,
as a result of which in the south-eastern slope of Vanqasar mountain,
directly above the Shahbulagh (Royal) springs, exactly at the spot
where 19th century's travelers were locating Tigranakert traces of an
ancient settlement were verified. Thee traces were in the form of
foundations of a fortification walls 200m in length, dug into the
rock, as well as large depositories of ancient pottery.
A clay vase, one of the many unearthed artifacts at Tigranakert
This data was sufficient enough for organization of investigatory two
week excavations in 2006, as a result of which the `swallow-like' ties
wall of the Fortified area, terrace support wall and early Christian
basilica were discovered. The excavation of the subsequent years
lasted two month annually and uncovered almost 60 hectares of a city
of 1st century BC to 14th century. Excavations of the six years
uncovered the foundations of the southern fortification wall dug into
the rock of the Fortified area 450 m of total length, the Citadel
located directly above the Fortified area, a portion of the northern
fortified walls that have 5m height and up to 185m of length, of the
same area, the single-domed basilica church of the central area and
the surrounding area. Investigative excavations were organized in
several areas of the Fortified and Central areas, Early Christian
necropolis, in the surrounding area of the Royal springs. As a result
of the investigative excavations of 2010-2011 the Ancient area of the
city as well as one of the Helenistic necropolis have been uncovered.
In 2012 we have organized large scale excavation of the newly
discovered Hellenistic area. In the surrounding areas the Cave
sanctuary complex, the Canal dug into a rock that passes through the
slope of the complex, as well as the Early Medieval fortress located
on the left bank of Khachenaget river were also researched.
The excavations are fairly large, the monument is being cleaned to
make sure that it is visible from a distance. We are trying to
preserve the landscape look of the monument, which means exclusion of
installation of any modern object on the whole territory of the
monument, if it could disrupt the landscape perception of the
monument.
The next component of the cultural initiative is the publicity efforts
that include organization of almost a dozen exhibitions in Artsakh,
Armenia and one exhibiton in Switzerland, publications, including in
French and English, creation of a website, creation of Facebook page,
several dozens of TV and radio interviews, organization of cultural
events, and finally the establishment of archaeological museum of
Tigranakert on the territory of the monument. As a result, today
Tigranakert is the most known to the public and most visited monument
in Artsakh with wide representation on the internet. It is important
to note that throughout the whole publicity process only one event has
been sponsored by the state - an exhibition in Yerevan, sponsored by
the Ministry of Culture of Armenia. Among the steps toward publicity
the establishment of the museum on the territory of the monument in
2010 is particularly important. In the course of two years the museum
had 45 thousand visitors, for comparison Armenia's largest and the
most visited museum - the State Museum of History of Armenia, has
approximately 40 thousand visits a year. Despite on the fact that
Nagorno Karabakh is not internationally recognized country and a lot
of countries advice their citizens against visiting the region, almost
eight thousand five hundred visitors of the museum were diasporan
Armenians, while four thousand five hundred were non-Armenians, mostly
citizens of Switzerland, USA, Canada and France. The museum has
already filled two books of impressions and one of my students has
completed a study based on the notes in these books which confirms
that Tigranakert not only facilitates the publicity of the cultural
heritage of Nagorno karabakh, but also reinforces the pride of the
local population, connecting them further to the geographic area,
becoming the holly center for the people who live in the region.
The government of the Nagorno Karabakh allocates 35 thousand euros
annually for excavations the bulk of which go toward organization of
two month excavations. The expedition does not have any other means of
financial support. All digital equipment used during excavations - the
computers, digital SLR cameras, printers, scanners, projector, GPS,
belong to a member of the expedition. The same can be stated about the
http://tigranakert.am/ site, which is supported by us. After winning
the fierce competition of the State Committee for Science of Armenia
the financial support for the scientific topic we were able to
purchase a computer and a printer, as well as one camera. We can say
that the publicity of Tigranakert is successful, but as you can see it
is difficult to qualify it as a state publicity.
The examination of the Azerbaijani responses is noteworthy in this
context. It can be characterized from silliness to sobriety, from
neglect of facts to the process of acceptance and interpretation, the
examination of which helps to understand the reasons of success and
failures of our own undertakings. The first is efficiency, in 2006
right after the excavations the Azerbaijani media and websites
reported about the excavations. This is true today as well, from
financial support to duration of excavations, to conclusions of the
expedition, although with obvious avoidance to use images that show
the monument in full, for example today you will not find a
Azerbaijani website that has a photo of the full fortress walls that
are widely popular on the Internet. At the beginning only jokes,
disparagement that can be named as the first stage. During the second
stage they were trying to get serious and find political answers in
our undertakings. The Azerbaijani academy joins with a special
decision about Tigranakert, which has been also placed on the website
of the National Security of Azerbaijan. By the way the same media has
mentioned also about the cautious behavior of Armenian government and
the Academy of Sciences of Armenia and interpret that as a sign of
not-seriousness. A reality has been created where I am personally
responsible for anti-propaganda of Azerbaijan. And we continued to
respond with circulation of new facts and new excavations. Today the
results of the recent excavations of Tigranakert are presented on
different websites with dozens of comments among hundreds of images
and structural photos. And it is difficult for an Azerbaijani
researcher to state that there is no city there, it is impossible to
assert that this is not an ancient city, furthermore they write
articles today that the city of Tigranakert existed but it was not an
Armenian settlement and was located in a different location. [3,
31-33]. Meaning they accept that Armenian archaeologists have
discovered a city built during the era of Tigran which is not
Tigranakert. I regard these last comments as our obvious success which
has been achieved without stepping aside from academism, adequate
representation of archaeological facts and as a result of avoidance of
boastful or tendentious examination.
Azerbaijani opponents often mention that foreign researchers and
scientists do not cooperate with us because they do not trust our
scientific integrity. Azerbaijani our colleagues of course realize
that the lack of cooperation is pure political, the international
organizations that deal with cultural heritage and appropriate state
institutions of certain countries avoid this cooperation because
Nagorno Karabakh is not internationally recognized state. UNESCO has
rejected two of my proposals to create a neutral, pure vocational
Internet portal with the database of all the monuments located in the
liberated territories, specifically in the surrounding areas of
Tigranakert, which will contain all monuments, including those of
Muslim origins with only one reasoning, the monuments of these
territories cannot be accepted for discussion. Of course we cooperate
with some of the specialist of the area, as an example I can point to
the cooperation with professor of Paris 4 University Giusto Traina,
who visited Tigranakert twice. In June of 2012 a group of architects
from the polytechnic of Milano that is busy with restoration of the
archaeological environment have visited Tigranakert. However these
visits are of personal matter. I have received several letters from
Adam Smith, a proffessor of the Chicago University, urging me to halt
the excavations, that supposedly do not facilitate the `reconciliation
of the two nations'. Turns our the political situation deprives the
people of Karabakh from the right to live a cultural life, a right
that is stated in the universal human rights convention a component of
which is transformation of the cultural heritage into a part of
everyday life.
As opposed to the unified rejection of the Azerbaijani government and
the academy Armenian scientific society in the case of Tigranakert is
diverse. The Presidium of Academy of Sciences of Armenia, which is a
state body has not reacted to excavations of Tigranakert on any level,
despite on the fact that the excavations are organized by an
expedition whose members belong to the Institute of Archaeology and
ethnography which is part of the Armenian Academy of Sciences. Certain
cautious behavior is also visible in other government agencies.
There are also quit a few cases of scientific scepticism. For example,
a famous armenologist, the head of the Armenian history chair at the
Yerevan State University finds that Tigranakert has been established
by Tigran Yervandyan and not Tigran the Great. He talks about this in
a film about the excavations of Tigranakert. It is worth to mention
that that the excavations have uncovered a city built in the first
century BC, and stating that the city has been built several hundred
years earlier without hard scientific evidence is incomprehensible for
me, especially in a movie dedicated to the city of Tigranakert. This
puts the Tigranakert of Artsakh under a direct suspicion. There are
also quit a few amateur or ridiculous approaches. An employee of the
state department for tourism Slava Sargsyan states that the local name
for Tigranakert - Tkrakert, has nothing to do with the name of
Tigranakert. It is a city built by Mongols in the 13th century and is
called Daranyurt. Tigranakert frequently is a topic for political
scientists, who either underestimate or overestimate the role of
historical truth in solution of political issues, for nationalists,
who dream of a king as powerful as Tigran the Great was, for
comedians, who announce that the excavations have uncovered computer
parts from Tigranakert, etc. All of this, first of all means that the
society is aware about our discoveries, accepts it as a significant
monument, which is in my opinion is the desire of any archaeologist.
The cultural policy in the recent decades is shifting its meaning and
direction in the world. The cultural right of a human being and the
perception of cultural democracy as a policy are getting wide
attention. In this context the largest result of the discovery and
research of Tigranakert is the wide publicity that this monument has,
its the stream of thousands of people that come to see the monument
disregarding if it is a part of the state policy or how serious
arguments pro and con of the scientist. A lot of them care about the
return of their cultural heritage. One of my students is working on a
topic `the society and the Tigranakert' and several months ago made a
presentation on the book of impressions of the museum of Tigranakert
at a student conference. The main expression used in that book is
pride, people who see Tigranakert first of all feel proud that they
are Armenians, that they have a liberated homeland and that they have
such a cultural heritage. Today Tigranakert is a location where
diplomas and medals are granted, competitions are held, concerts and
festivals are organized. The population of the surrounding villages
brings their guests to Tigranakert, sends books, images and brochures
about Tigranakert to their relatives who live abroad, etc. And isn't
the increase of the role of cultural heritage in shaping of the
identity the main goal of a cultural policy?
At the beginning the discovery of Tigranakert for me and my friends
was an initiative to prove wrong the president Ilham Aliyev of
Azerbaijan who stated that Armenians have moved to the territory of
Karabakh in the 19th century. Today, after witnessing the regard
toward the monument of the thousands of people, the pride, I think it
is one of the components of the current cultural development and
identity making and any policy - local or international - should take
into consideration this phenomenon.
From: A. Papazian
http://asbarez.com/107365/monument-and-society-tigranakert-of-artsakh/
Friday, December 28th, 2012 | Posted by Contributor
Some of the excavations underway in Tigranakert
BY HAMLET PETROSYAN
The Hellenistic city of Tigranakert is located in the internationally
unrecognized republic of Nagorno Karabakh (old Armenian name of which
is Artsakh), which has proclaimed its independence at the beginning of
the 90s of the last century after the Armenian-Azerbaijani war. The
discovery of Tigranakert is one of the most successful undertakings of
the Armenian cultural heritage in terms of inclusion of this heritage
into the current cultural processes. The initiative to discover the
city was a civic initiative to reveal to the Armenian and
international scientific and political circles, that `historical
excursus' of Azerbaijan about the idea the Armenians came to Nagorno
Karabakh only in the 19th century, was a political hoax, via ignoring
the presence of Armenians during last two thousand years in Nagorno
Karabakh and surroundings, witnessed by many Greek and Roman (Strabo,
Pliny the Elder, Plutarch, Ptolemy, Dio Cassius), Armenian, Arabic,
Persian, Georgian historians, several thousands of Armenian
inscriptions of the 7th-18th centuries, and so on.
Prof. Hamlet Petrosyan, Chair of the Department of Cultural Studies,
Yerevan State University
Before the archaeological research only legends were known about this
city. Despite on certain bibliographic data and some citations by
certain authors of the 19th century about the remnants of a city built
by Tigran the Great (95-55 BC), in the first century BC, located 30km
north-east from the city of Stepanakert, in proximity to the former
Azerbaijani city of Aghdam, only two structures were visible on the
location: a fortress built in 18th century and a small building with
an open hall.
During the first stage of the research I have collected all the
bibliographical data that was available about the location. Turned out
that Armenian sources starting from the 7th century are citing not
only one, but two Tigranakerts in this territory, moreover the
citations are not in stories about Tigran the Great, but in
descriptions of events of the 7-8 centuries. It was obvious, that
irrespective of after what Tigran they were named (several kings are
known by the name of Tigran - from 6th century BC to the 1st century
AD) in the 7th century there were two settlements at this location
that were called Tigranakert. The comparison of this data with the
folk legends as well as with travelers' portrayals made possible to
assert that Tigranakert that interests us is located on the border of
merging of Artsakh mountain range with steppe, on the road to ancient
Georgian kingdom Iberia's capital city of Tbghis-Tbilisi, in the
current of the second largest river of Artakh - Kahchenaget. Based on
this research in 2005 an expedition formed by my initiative consisting
of experts of archaeology of bronze age, ancient and middle ages set
for an archaeological research of the area. The expedition examined
the territory with radius of 10km where Khachenaget gets out into the
steppe, photographing in detail every monument, describing visible
structures and archaeological layers and the archaeological material
on the surface. Based on all of this the archaeological map of the
area was created with presentation of all monuments by type and
chronology. This data and the comparative analysis of previously
organized archaeological research, including research done by
Azerbaijanis, gave us the ability to pinpoint two large settlements -
Shahbulagh and Gyavur Kala, that could be the remnants of ancient
Tigranakert. The third stage was the topographical,
architectural-archaeological examination of the remnants in the area,
as a result of which in the south-eastern slope of Vanqasar mountain,
directly above the Shahbulagh (Royal) springs, exactly at the spot
where 19th century's travelers were locating Tigranakert traces of an
ancient settlement were verified. Thee traces were in the form of
foundations of a fortification walls 200m in length, dug into the
rock, as well as large depositories of ancient pottery.
A clay vase, one of the many unearthed artifacts at Tigranakert
This data was sufficient enough for organization of investigatory two
week excavations in 2006, as a result of which the `swallow-like' ties
wall of the Fortified area, terrace support wall and early Christian
basilica were discovered. The excavation of the subsequent years
lasted two month annually and uncovered almost 60 hectares of a city
of 1st century BC to 14th century. Excavations of the six years
uncovered the foundations of the southern fortification wall dug into
the rock of the Fortified area 450 m of total length, the Citadel
located directly above the Fortified area, a portion of the northern
fortified walls that have 5m height and up to 185m of length, of the
same area, the single-domed basilica church of the central area and
the surrounding area. Investigative excavations were organized in
several areas of the Fortified and Central areas, Early Christian
necropolis, in the surrounding area of the Royal springs. As a result
of the investigative excavations of 2010-2011 the Ancient area of the
city as well as one of the Helenistic necropolis have been uncovered.
In 2012 we have organized large scale excavation of the newly
discovered Hellenistic area. In the surrounding areas the Cave
sanctuary complex, the Canal dug into a rock that passes through the
slope of the complex, as well as the Early Medieval fortress located
on the left bank of Khachenaget river were also researched.
The excavations are fairly large, the monument is being cleaned to
make sure that it is visible from a distance. We are trying to
preserve the landscape look of the monument, which means exclusion of
installation of any modern object on the whole territory of the
monument, if it could disrupt the landscape perception of the
monument.
The next component of the cultural initiative is the publicity efforts
that include organization of almost a dozen exhibitions in Artsakh,
Armenia and one exhibiton in Switzerland, publications, including in
French and English, creation of a website, creation of Facebook page,
several dozens of TV and radio interviews, organization of cultural
events, and finally the establishment of archaeological museum of
Tigranakert on the territory of the monument. As a result, today
Tigranakert is the most known to the public and most visited monument
in Artsakh with wide representation on the internet. It is important
to note that throughout the whole publicity process only one event has
been sponsored by the state - an exhibition in Yerevan, sponsored by
the Ministry of Culture of Armenia. Among the steps toward publicity
the establishment of the museum on the territory of the monument in
2010 is particularly important. In the course of two years the museum
had 45 thousand visitors, for comparison Armenia's largest and the
most visited museum - the State Museum of History of Armenia, has
approximately 40 thousand visits a year. Despite on the fact that
Nagorno Karabakh is not internationally recognized country and a lot
of countries advice their citizens against visiting the region, almost
eight thousand five hundred visitors of the museum were diasporan
Armenians, while four thousand five hundred were non-Armenians, mostly
citizens of Switzerland, USA, Canada and France. The museum has
already filled two books of impressions and one of my students has
completed a study based on the notes in these books which confirms
that Tigranakert not only facilitates the publicity of the cultural
heritage of Nagorno karabakh, but also reinforces the pride of the
local population, connecting them further to the geographic area,
becoming the holly center for the people who live in the region.
The government of the Nagorno Karabakh allocates 35 thousand euros
annually for excavations the bulk of which go toward organization of
two month excavations. The expedition does not have any other means of
financial support. All digital equipment used during excavations - the
computers, digital SLR cameras, printers, scanners, projector, GPS,
belong to a member of the expedition. The same can be stated about the
http://tigranakert.am/ site, which is supported by us. After winning
the fierce competition of the State Committee for Science of Armenia
the financial support for the scientific topic we were able to
purchase a computer and a printer, as well as one camera. We can say
that the publicity of Tigranakert is successful, but as you can see it
is difficult to qualify it as a state publicity.
The examination of the Azerbaijani responses is noteworthy in this
context. It can be characterized from silliness to sobriety, from
neglect of facts to the process of acceptance and interpretation, the
examination of which helps to understand the reasons of success and
failures of our own undertakings. The first is efficiency, in 2006
right after the excavations the Azerbaijani media and websites
reported about the excavations. This is true today as well, from
financial support to duration of excavations, to conclusions of the
expedition, although with obvious avoidance to use images that show
the monument in full, for example today you will not find a
Azerbaijani website that has a photo of the full fortress walls that
are widely popular on the Internet. At the beginning only jokes,
disparagement that can be named as the first stage. During the second
stage they were trying to get serious and find political answers in
our undertakings. The Azerbaijani academy joins with a special
decision about Tigranakert, which has been also placed on the website
of the National Security of Azerbaijan. By the way the same media has
mentioned also about the cautious behavior of Armenian government and
the Academy of Sciences of Armenia and interpret that as a sign of
not-seriousness. A reality has been created where I am personally
responsible for anti-propaganda of Azerbaijan. And we continued to
respond with circulation of new facts and new excavations. Today the
results of the recent excavations of Tigranakert are presented on
different websites with dozens of comments among hundreds of images
and structural photos. And it is difficult for an Azerbaijani
researcher to state that there is no city there, it is impossible to
assert that this is not an ancient city, furthermore they write
articles today that the city of Tigranakert existed but it was not an
Armenian settlement and was located in a different location. [3,
31-33]. Meaning they accept that Armenian archaeologists have
discovered a city built during the era of Tigran which is not
Tigranakert. I regard these last comments as our obvious success which
has been achieved without stepping aside from academism, adequate
representation of archaeological facts and as a result of avoidance of
boastful or tendentious examination.
Azerbaijani opponents often mention that foreign researchers and
scientists do not cooperate with us because they do not trust our
scientific integrity. Azerbaijani our colleagues of course realize
that the lack of cooperation is pure political, the international
organizations that deal with cultural heritage and appropriate state
institutions of certain countries avoid this cooperation because
Nagorno Karabakh is not internationally recognized state. UNESCO has
rejected two of my proposals to create a neutral, pure vocational
Internet portal with the database of all the monuments located in the
liberated territories, specifically in the surrounding areas of
Tigranakert, which will contain all monuments, including those of
Muslim origins with only one reasoning, the monuments of these
territories cannot be accepted for discussion. Of course we cooperate
with some of the specialist of the area, as an example I can point to
the cooperation with professor of Paris 4 University Giusto Traina,
who visited Tigranakert twice. In June of 2012 a group of architects
from the polytechnic of Milano that is busy with restoration of the
archaeological environment have visited Tigranakert. However these
visits are of personal matter. I have received several letters from
Adam Smith, a proffessor of the Chicago University, urging me to halt
the excavations, that supposedly do not facilitate the `reconciliation
of the two nations'. Turns our the political situation deprives the
people of Karabakh from the right to live a cultural life, a right
that is stated in the universal human rights convention a component of
which is transformation of the cultural heritage into a part of
everyday life.
As opposed to the unified rejection of the Azerbaijani government and
the academy Armenian scientific society in the case of Tigranakert is
diverse. The Presidium of Academy of Sciences of Armenia, which is a
state body has not reacted to excavations of Tigranakert on any level,
despite on the fact that the excavations are organized by an
expedition whose members belong to the Institute of Archaeology and
ethnography which is part of the Armenian Academy of Sciences. Certain
cautious behavior is also visible in other government agencies.
There are also quit a few cases of scientific scepticism. For example,
a famous armenologist, the head of the Armenian history chair at the
Yerevan State University finds that Tigranakert has been established
by Tigran Yervandyan and not Tigran the Great. He talks about this in
a film about the excavations of Tigranakert. It is worth to mention
that that the excavations have uncovered a city built in the first
century BC, and stating that the city has been built several hundred
years earlier without hard scientific evidence is incomprehensible for
me, especially in a movie dedicated to the city of Tigranakert. This
puts the Tigranakert of Artsakh under a direct suspicion. There are
also quit a few amateur or ridiculous approaches. An employee of the
state department for tourism Slava Sargsyan states that the local name
for Tigranakert - Tkrakert, has nothing to do with the name of
Tigranakert. It is a city built by Mongols in the 13th century and is
called Daranyurt. Tigranakert frequently is a topic for political
scientists, who either underestimate or overestimate the role of
historical truth in solution of political issues, for nationalists,
who dream of a king as powerful as Tigran the Great was, for
comedians, who announce that the excavations have uncovered computer
parts from Tigranakert, etc. All of this, first of all means that the
society is aware about our discoveries, accepts it as a significant
monument, which is in my opinion is the desire of any archaeologist.
The cultural policy in the recent decades is shifting its meaning and
direction in the world. The cultural right of a human being and the
perception of cultural democracy as a policy are getting wide
attention. In this context the largest result of the discovery and
research of Tigranakert is the wide publicity that this monument has,
its the stream of thousands of people that come to see the monument
disregarding if it is a part of the state policy or how serious
arguments pro and con of the scientist. A lot of them care about the
return of their cultural heritage. One of my students is working on a
topic `the society and the Tigranakert' and several months ago made a
presentation on the book of impressions of the museum of Tigranakert
at a student conference. The main expression used in that book is
pride, people who see Tigranakert first of all feel proud that they
are Armenians, that they have a liberated homeland and that they have
such a cultural heritage. Today Tigranakert is a location where
diplomas and medals are granted, competitions are held, concerts and
festivals are organized. The population of the surrounding villages
brings their guests to Tigranakert, sends books, images and brochures
about Tigranakert to their relatives who live abroad, etc. And isn't
the increase of the role of cultural heritage in shaping of the
identity the main goal of a cultural policy?
At the beginning the discovery of Tigranakert for me and my friends
was an initiative to prove wrong the president Ilham Aliyev of
Azerbaijan who stated that Armenians have moved to the territory of
Karabakh in the 19th century. Today, after witnessing the regard
toward the monument of the thousands of people, the pride, I think it
is one of the components of the current cultural development and
identity making and any policy - local or international - should take
into consideration this phenomenon.
From: A. Papazian