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Tigranakert Was Presented In Florence, Italy

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  • Tigranakert Was Presented In Florence, Italy

    TIGRANAKERT WAS PRESENTED IN FLORENCE, ITALY

    http://times.am/?l=en&p=14387

    Tigranakert was presented in All Italian 1st conference on Public
    archaeology (Archeologia Pubblica. Il primo congresso di archeologia
    pubblica in Italia. Firenze, 29 - 30 ottobre 2012) organized by
    University of Florence in Pallazzo Vecchio.The head of Tigranakert
    Archaeological Mission, professor of Yerevan State University Hamlet
    L. Petrosyan on Monday 29th of October hold a presentation in Pablic
    Archaeology all Italian conference in Florence. Bellow there are some
    quotations from his presentation.

    "The Hellenistic city of Tigranakert is located in the internationally
    unrecognized republic of Nagorno Karabagh, 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. Before the archaeological research only legends are known
    about this city. 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 Karabagh only in the 19th
    century, was a political hoax, via ignoring the presence of Armenians
    during last two thousand years in Nagorno Karabagh 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.

    During the first stage of the research I have collected all the
    bibliographical data about the location. The comparison of this
    data with the folk legends as well as with travelers' portrayals
    made possible to assert that Tigranakert was located on the border
    of merging of Karabagh mountain range with steppe, on the road from
    Armenia to ancient Georgian kingdom of Iberia, in the current river
    of Khachenaget. Based on this research in 2005 an expedition was set
    for an archaeological research of the area. The mission examined the
    territory with radius of 10km where Khachenaget gets out into the
    steppe. As a result of this in the south-eastern slope of Vanqasar
    mountain, an ancient settlement were verified. The traces were in the
    form of foundations of a fortification walls 200m in length, dug into
    the rock, as well as large depositories of Hellenistic pottery. This
    data was sufficient enough for systematically excavations, as a result
    of which during 2006-2012 uncovered some parts of almost 60 hectares
    of a city: the Hellenistic Fortified area with foundations dug into
    the rock and walls with "swallow-like" ties, the single-domed basilica
    church of the Central area, Early Christian necropolis, Hellenistic
    necropolis and Hellenistic Quarter, Early Christian Cave sanctuary
    complex, and the Canal dug into a rock. 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 this cultural initiative is the publicity efforts
    that include organization of almost a dozen exhibitions in Karabagh,
    Armenia and one exhibiton in Switzerland, publications, including in
    Russian, French, Inglish and Spanish, hope soon in Italian, creation of
    a website, creation of Facebook page, several dozens of TV and radio
    interviews, 7 documental movies, 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 Karabagh. 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 Karabagh is not internationally
    recognized country and a lot of governments advice their citizens
    against visiting the region, almost eight thousand five hundred
    visitors of the museum were diasporas Armenians, while four thousand
    five hundred were non-Armenians, mostly citizens of Switzerland, USA,
    Canada and France. Unfortunately Italy has a very modest position in
    this list with only 150 non-Armenian citizens.

    Tigranakert not only facilitates the publicity of the cultural
    heritage of Nagorno Karabagh, but also reinforces the pride of the
    local population, connecting them further to the environment, becoming
    the holly center for the people who live in the region. 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 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 there were
    only jokes, disparagement. Then 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. 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, etc. Meaning they accept
    that Armenian archaeologists have discovered a city built during
    the era of Tigranes the Great which is not Tigranakert. Azerbaijani
    opponents often mention that foreign researchers and scientists
    do not cooperate with us because they do not trust our scientific
    integrity. Azerbaijani 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 Karabagh
    is not internationally recognized state.

    UNESCO's Moscow office has rejected to submit 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 heritage
    of these territories cannot be accepted for discussion.

    One can resume, that the political situation deprives the people
    of Karabagh 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. 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, it is 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. 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 Karabgh 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 attesting in Nagorno Karabagh".

    31.10.12, 23:26

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