During the International Religious Freedom and Peace conference at the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, archaeologist Hamlet Petrosyan, the head of the Artsakh Tigranakert Archaeological Expedition, presented Azerbaijan’s policy of destroying and appropriating the Armenian cultural traces that was implemented even in the 1960s. And now, the fate of the Armenian monuments in the occupied territories is in danger.
The archeologist labeled Azerbaijan’s claims that the Muslim monuments of Artsakh have not been preserved as unfounded. He showed the preserved Muslim monuments with examples and photos and pointed out that unlike the Armenian side, Azerbaijan does not do that. Armenian inscriptions have already been removed from some of the monuments in the occupied territories.
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Hamlet Petrosyan also presented the results of the excavations in Tigranakert founded by Tigran the Great. According to the specialist, Tigranakert is an exceptional regional structure, in which there are the first Greek protocols in the region and 18 Armenian-language protocols. “Now Azerbaijan has a serious problem. If the Christian heritage can be turned into something Caucasian Albanian and appropriated, then how should it deal with Tigranakert ? After all, it is attested in written sources; it has been excavated. If Tigranakert is Albanian, then why is it called “Tigran”? If there is a name “Tigranakert,” how can it be Albanian? All this is in great danger because they have not found the mechanism to ‘Azerify’ it,” he said. Hamlet Petrosyan emphasized that the artifacts from the Tigranakert museum have been saved, and now Azerbaijan accuses Armenia of stealing “its cultural heritage.”
Luiza Sukiasyan
