Statue of the Armenian Goddess Anahit (1st c. BC.)
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A collection of old Armenian Postcards. The image quality is not the best, but they’re still interesting to view.
Armenian from Sasoun (ca1910) Publisher: D. Ephimov
Armenian woman from Shemakha (1910) D.Ephimov
This poster was issued by Intourist, the official travel agency of the former Soviet Union, in around 1936. It was included in the V&A's Art Deco exhibition in 2003. It advertises the former Soviet Republic of Armenia as a tourist destination. Intourist had the state monopoly on travel during the Soviet era, and still dominates the travel trade to many provincial Russian locations. The image of Soviet Armenia communicated here is a glamorous and varied one. The train and the car in the foreground boast the advanced modern machinery of the period and the high railway bridge is an example of Soviet engineering skills. The beauty of the country's natural landscape is shown in the background. The poster creates an image of glamorous tourism, and is similar to travel posters produced in western Europe at the time.
Here is a selection of some beautiful old religious Armenian pastoral staffs that I found on the internet.
Armenian pastoral staff (1700-1825). Portions of a priest's staff, silver gilt, comprising the head and three knops; the volute is in the form of a serpent's neck and head, covered with scales, which are formed by small 'cloisons', filled with coloured enamels; the jaws are wide open, showing rows of teeth and a long tongue. The lower part of the head of the staff is of filigree work, and the three knops are each divided into four compartments, decorated with synmetrically arranged floral ornament, formed in the same manner as the scales.
This is a slightly outdated news but I found this article from the official Vatican news agency, very interesting to say the least. In the light of what’s recently going on in France and the huge amount of pressure Turkey is forcing on the French government to dismantle the newly adopted Genocide bill, it’s worthy to mention this striking descovery.
The chilling testimonies will be published in a book. The news came during the presentation of the “Lux Arcana” exhibition which will display the treasures of one of the world’s oldest archives
ALESSANDRO SPECIALE
VATICAN CITY
In the Secret Vatican Archives documents are stored that testify to the unprecedented and shocking genocide by the Ottoman Empire against the Armenians during the First World War. Documents that will be published soon in a book co-edited by the same Vatican Archives.
The advanced news arrived, a little by surprise, during the presentation in the Vatican of the exhibit “Lux Arcana”, which – from next February – will open to the public, for the first time, the treasures of one of the oldest and most extensive archives in the world.
The testimonials, explained the prefect of the Secret Archives, Monsignor Sergio Pagano, describe “in detail” the “procedures of torture that the Turks used towards the Armenians”. For example, he said, there is evidence of how the soldiers of the Sublime Porte would bet “on the sex of fetuses in the wombs of pregnant women before they quartered them and with the same knife killed the babies”.
These episodes, said the Vatican archivist, “make me ashamed to be a man, and if it were not for faith, I would see only darkness”.
It is easy to imagine that the publication of these documents reignite the tension between the Holy See and Turkey, at a time when the memory of the killing of Monsignor Luigi Padovese, Apostolic Vicar of Anatolia, a year ago June 3rd, is still alive.
The Catholic Church is still waiting for an acknowledgment by the Turkish state, although recently some progress has been made. For example, it has become easier to perform pilgrimages to the church in Tarsus, the birthplace of St. Paul.
Among the highlights of the exhibit, there are also the authentic and complete dossier of the trial of Galileo Galilei, the ‘Dictatus papae’ in which Gregory VII (1073-1085) sanctioned the supremacy of the papal theocracy over any other power and an autographed document of Michelangelo.
Armenians have a long and exceptionally rich literary tradition. Ancient scripts dating back to millennia before the start of the Common Era are found in abundance on the Armenian plateau. Among numerous scripts and hieroglyphs written in tongs long lost, are the Urartian hieroglyphs that have yet to be deciphered by modern scholars. Many Armenian words we speak today trace their origin to these ancient times. A well known example is the word “khndzor” meaning “apple” in Armenian. Although these ancient hieroglyphs show a remarkable development of linguistic culture in the earliest of days, it was not until the adoption of the modern Armenian alphabet that a period of illumination and intellectual expression unparalleled in Armenian history has began. Ever since the creation of the modern Armenian alphabet devised in 405 AD by Saint Mesrop Mashtots, Armenians have been actively engaged in the practice of writing. So dear was this script to the early Armenains that according to J.R.Russell (Harvard University) “Armenian was never again to be written otherwise, and even Armenians who spoke alien tongues used their own script to write in them.”
They wrote tens of thousands of religious manuscripts, recorded scientific discoveries, translated Greek and Persian philosophy and recorded historic events as they unfolded during the old days. Much of what we know about Armenian history and culture today, has been preserved in these manuscripts and historic books. As the writing culture expanded among the Armenians so did the art of calligraphy. In fact up to the XIV century, Armenian books were all handwritten, facilitating the development of a rich tradition of calligraphy.
Armenian Priest, Smyrna by Charles Gleyre
One of my old video’s, enjoy!
