A Page from People of All Nations, their life story today and the story of their past captured in numerous photographs edited by J.A. Hammerton 1920

text reads:

ARMENIAN CARPET MANUFACTORY IN EASTERN KURDISTAN

Neither the Turk nor the Kurd is remarkable for artistic talent, but the Armenians, with a culture going back to the age of Babylon, have, like the Asiatic Greeks, coloured the minds of their conquerors with the old native arts. Here we see two fine Kurdistan carpets being made by little Armenian maids, under supervision of older women, while a finished carpet hangs ready for sale between the ....

From Washington Post

By Philip Kennicott, Tuesday, October 22, 2:18 AM

Cover art for “President Calvin Coolidge and the Armenian Orphan Rug” by Hagop Martin Deranian.

The rug was woven by orphans in the 1920s and formally presented to the White House in 1925. A photograph shows President Calvin Coolidge standing on the carpet, which is no mere juvenile effort, but a complicated, richly detailed work that would hold its own even in the largest and most ceremonial rooms.

If you can read a carpet’s cues, the plants and animals depicted on the rug may represent the Garden of Eden, which is about as far removed as possible from the rug’s origins in the horrific events of 1915, when the fracturing and senescent Ottoman Empire began amurderous campaign against its Armenian population. Between 1 million and 1.5 million people were killed or died of starvation, and others were uprooted from their homes in what has been termed the first modern and systematic genocide. Many were left orphans, including the more than 100,000 children who were assisted by the U.S.-sponsored Near East Relief organization, which helped relocate and protect the girls who wove the “orphan rug.” It was made in the town of Ghazir, now in Lebanon, as thanks for the United States’ assistance during the genocide.

There was hope that the carpet, which has been in storage for almost 20 years, might be displayed Dec. 16 as part of a Smithsonian event that would include a book launch for Hagop Martin Deranian’s “President Calvin Coolidge and the Armenian Orphan Rug.” But on Sept. 12, the Smithsonian scholar who helped organize the event canceled it, citing the White House’s decision not to loan the carpet. In a letter to two Armenian American organizations, Paul Michael Taylor, director of the institution’s Asian cultural history program, had no explanation for the White House’s refusal to allow the rug to be seen and said that efforts by the U.S. ambassador to Armenia, John A. Heffern, to intervene had also been unavailing.

Although Taylor, Heffern and the White House curator, William G. Allman, had discussed during a January meeting the possibility of an event that might include the rug, it became clear that the rug wasn’t going to emerge from deep hiding.

“This week I spoke again with the White House curator asking if there was any indication of when a loan might be possible again but he has none,” wrote Taylor in the letter. Efforts to contact Heffern through the embassy in the Armenian capital of Yerevan were unsuccessful, and the State Department referred all questions to the White House.

Last week, the White House issued a statement: “The Ghazir rug is a reminder of the close relationship between the peoples of Armenia and the United States. We regret that it is not possible to loan it out at this time.”

The Armenian Orphan Rug is viewed inside the White House in September 1984 by activists looking to preserve its identity. (L-R) U. S. Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.), Dr. H. Martin Deranian, Worcester historian, and Set Momjian, a former ambassador to the United Nations.

That leaves the rug, and the sponsors of the event, in limbo, a familiar place for Armenians. Neither Ara Ghazarians of the Armenian Cultural Foundation nor Levon Der Bedrossian of the Armenian Rugs Society can be sure if the event they had helped plan was canceled for the usual political reason: fear of negative reaction from Turkey, which has resolutely resisted labeling the events at the end of the Ottoman Empire a genocide. But both suspect it might have been.

“Turkey is a very powerful country,” says Der Bedrossian, whose organization was planning to fund a reception for the event.

And it’s a sign of the Obama administration’s dismal reputation in the Armenian American community that everyone assumes it must be yet another slap in the face for Armenians seeking to promote understanding of one of the darkest chapters in 20th-century history.

Aram Suren Hamparian, executive director of the Armenian National Committee of America, says the president has had “a very negative reception across the board in the Armenian world, and that includes both Democrats and Republicans.” The principal emotion is profound disappointment. As a candidate, and senator, Obama spoke eloquently about the Armenian genocide, risking the ire of Turkey and Turkish organizations. But since taking office, says Hamparian, Obama has avoided the word, making more general statements about Armenian suffering. Critics of his silence point to the geopolitical importance of Turkey in a region made only more complex by the Arab Spring and a brutal civil war in Syria.The word genocide is a flash point in the ongoing animosity between Turkey, Armenia and the Armenian diaspora. Turkish resistance to accepting the historical facts of the Armenian genocide has included wholesale denial that the events took place, an effort to contextualize them as the fallout of a complicated, violent period, and semantic argument based on the 1948 legal definition of genocide, established by the United Nations. Independent scholars have eviscerated the first of these claims, demonstrated the bad faith of the second (the treatment of the Armenians was egregious) and grappled seriously with the legal particulars, especially the difficulty of proving the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.” But few seriously argue that the events weren’t genocidal.

Samantha Power, for example, uses the term “Armenian genocide” throughout her landmark 2002 book on genocide, “A Problem From Hell.” Power was appointed by Obama to serve as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and was confirmed in August.

But the president’s language has been more circumspect. As a candidate, he said, “The Armenian genocide is not an allegation, a personal opinion or a point of view, but rather a widely documented fact supported by an overwhelming body of historical evidence. America deserves a leader who speaks truthfully about the Armenian genocide and responds forcefully to all genocides.” But in his most recent presidential proclamation honoring April 24’s Armenian Remembrance Day, he used the Armenian term “Meds Yeghern” — “great calamity” — while avoiding explicit mention of genocide.

U.S. government officials and the Smithsonian have been reluctant to address a controversy that is often dismissed as just another intractable historical dispute. Although Armenian musicians performed at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in 2002, a Smithsonian spokeswoman says the institution hasn’t taken up the subject of the genocide, a remarkable omission of scholarship concerning an important ethnic group in the United States and one of the last century’s most critical and notorious historical events. (Even Adolf Hitler supposedly referred to the Armenian genocide in a quote that is also disputed by some scholars: “Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?” he asked in a speech just before Germany invaded Poland in 1939.)

A close-up of the Armenian Orphan Rug with its intricate detail bearing colorful images of animals akin to the Garden of Eden. The rug was woven in 1924-25 and presented to President Calvin Coolidge. It now lies in storage inside the White House.

In Power’s book, the author notes the power of “Turkish objections” to prevent official U.S. recognition of the genocide. As a presidential candidate, Obama said in a statement that he “stood with the Armenian American community in calling for Turkey’s acknowledgment of the Armenian Genocide.” But April’s presidential proclamation finessed the delicate situation by saying, “I have consistently stated my own view of what occurred in 1915, and my view has not changed,” suggesting he strongly supports a truth he no longer has the courage to utter.

Calls and e-mails to the Turkish Embassy in Washington weren’t returned.

The status of the rug remains ambiguous. It was last taken out of storage in 1995 and is reported to be in good condition. But a White House spokesman declined to answer questions about whether it might ever be seen again, if the climate is simply too politicized for the rug to be exhibited.

And the Smithsonian is distancing itself from Taylor. “Dr. Taylor put this together on his own, nobody knew about it, certainly senior leadership didn’t know about it,” says Randall Kremer, who handles public affairs for the National Museum of Natural History, where Taylor is employed.

Taylor says he doesn’t want to speculate about why the White House won’t lend the object, and he says he isn’t an expert on the tortured politics of the region. It was the rug, its iconography, its status among Armenians and its history that intrigued him, especially after hearing Armenians discuss it during a 2012 visit to Armenia.

“We’re not afraid of doing Armenian exhibitions,” he says. “I would love to do one.”

Although the White House can offer no explanation about why the rug is off limits to the American people, Der Bedrossian is optimistic that it might someday see the light of day.

“Rug weaving is a metaphor for me: We can make peace weaving together,” he says. “We are patient. I tend to believe in miracles. Someday it will come.”

An overall view of the Armenian Orphan Rug, which measures 18′x12′. Armenian activists are trying to have it removed from storage inside the White House and have it showcased.

Source: Washington Post

Some more maps of ancient Armenia

Title: Tabula Asiae III [Black & Caspian Sea Region]

Map Maker: Sebastian Munster

Place / Date: Basle / 1542
Description:  Excellent example of Munster’s Ptolemaic map of the region between the Black Sea and Caspian Sea extending south to include all of Armenia Maior and part of Armenia Minoris.

Munster’s map shows Noahs Arc in the Caspian Sea, believed to have come to rest in a mountain in Armenia according to the map. Shows Armenia Maior, Iberia, Albania, Colchis, Porte Albanie, the Euphratis River, the Tigris, Assyriae, and many other place names in the cradle of civilization.  The map is unchanged from the 1540 edition.

Munster’s Geographia was a cartographic landmark, including not only Ptolemaic maps, but also a number of landmark modern maps, including the first separate maps of the 4 continents, the first map of England and the earliest obtainable map of Scandinavia. Munster dominated cartographic publication during the mid-16th Century. Munster is generally regarded as one of the three most important map makers of the 16th Century, along with Ortelius and Mercator. Munster was a linguist and mathematician, who initially taught Hebrew in Heidelberg. He issued his first mapping of Germany in 1529, after which he issued a call geographical information about Germany to scholars throughout the country. The response was better than hoped for, and included substantial foreign material, which supplied him with up to date, if not necessarily accurate maps for the issuance of his Geographia in 1540.

Map of Armenia Major, Colchis, Iberia, Albania,-1535-1400

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Description:  Jacob d’Angelo after Claudius Ptolemaeus, “Cosmographia Claudii Ptolomaei Alexandrini”
Date: 1467

1467 Jacob d’Angelo after Ptolemy, Cosmographia

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Description: Tabula Asiae III, Armenia, Iberia, Colchis, etc…
Date: 1579
Author: Gerardus Mercator (1512–1594)

Tabula Asiae III, map of Armenia Major, Colchis, Iberia, Albania -1579

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Description:  Tabula Asiae III: Armenia major, Colchis, Iberia, Albania
Date: 1535
Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France
Author:  Michel Servet (1511-1553).

Asiae Tabula III Colchis, Iberia, Albania, Armenia, 1535

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Title: Tercia Asiae Tabula (Armenia, etc.) (with early manuscript additions)

Map Maker: Martin Waldseemuller

Place / Date: Lorraine / 1513

Description: A striking example of Waldseemuller’s map of the region between the Black and Caspian Seas, centered on Armenia.

The first modern atlas, prepared by Martin Waldseemuller using the translation of Mathias Ringmann.  This is one of the most important editions of Ptolemy, containing many new regional maps.  Twenty new maps based on contemporary knowledge were included by Waldseemuller, in addition to the traditional twenty-seven Ptolemaic maps derived from the 1482 Ulm edition.

Martin Waldseemuller and his associate Mathias Ringmann, prepared this edition of Ptolemy, partly at the expense of Duke Rene of Lorraine.  It was brought to completion by Jacobus Eszler and Georgius Ubelin.  The atlas contains the first map in an atlas entirely devoted to America (Tabula terre nove), often called the “Admiral’s map” after Columbus. The map of Lotharingia (the first map of the Duchy of Lorrain), printed in black, red and olive, is one the earliest examples of color-printing. This edition was reprinted in 1520 using the same woodcut blocks.

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Title: Tabula Tertia Asiae [Title on Verso - Armenia and Caspian Region]

Map Maker: Laurent Fries

Place / Date: Lyon / 1541

Description: Marvelous map of Armenia and the regions between the Balck Sea, Caspian Sea and the Caucus Mountains.

One of the earliest obtainable maps of the region and one of the most strikingly engraved. Latin Text on the verso.

Tabula Tertia Asiae 1541

He’s the hottest pianist in jazz and he likes to mix things up, whether it’s bebop, thrash metal or dubstep. But his heart is in the folk music of his native land.

By: John Lewis
From: The Guardian, Thursday 24 October 2013 15.59 BST

Tigran Hamasyan: ‘I get into different types of music and really immerse myself in each one.’

Somewhere, there’s home-movie footage of a three-year-old Tigran Hamasyan at his childhood home in rural Armenia. He is listening to Black Sabbath’s Paranoid and freaking out on a toy guitar. “That was my childhood ambition,” he laughs. “Still, to this day, if I could become a killer guitar player in a couple of years, I’d quit playing the piano and start learning now. I’d love to front a thrash metal band!”

Thankfully, thrash metal’s loss has been jazz’s gain. At the age of 26, this tiny, impish Armenian-American is the hottest pianist in jazz, selling out arenas and earning fervent praise from the likes of Chick Corea, Brad Mehldau and Herbie Hancock (the latter declared: “Tigran, you are my teacher now!”). But Hamasyan isn’t even sure if he makes jazz music. “I suppose it’s jazz in the sense that I’m improvising,” he says. “But the language I try to use when I’m improvising is not bebop but Armenian folk music.”

Hamasyan has an omnivorous musical diet. He devours traditional songs from Armenia, Scandinavia and India, and has studied classical music to a high level (he has suggested a budding jazz pianist would be better off playing Bach or Chopin than studying bebop), while his iPod playlist is that of the twentysomething hipster – J Dilla, Flying Lotus, Radiohead, Sigur Rós, Skrillex and a heavy dose of thrash metal.

But the music he makes doesn’t really sound like any of the above. We meet after he’s played to a sold-out 2,000-seat theatre in Toulouse, where his 90-minute set lurches from delicate, impressionistic versions of eastern orthodox hymns to bursts of electronica; from Keith Jarrett-like meditations to full-on jazz-rock.

“I get into different types of music and really immerse myself in each one and then move on,” he says. “But I try to retain that intensity whenever I revisit any particular music.” In the past 18 months alone he has collaborated with Indian percussionist Trilok Gurtu, Tunisian oud player Dhafer Youssef, dubstep collective LV, oddball hip-hop producer Prefuse 73, along with fellow Armenian-American Serj Tankian from prog-metal outfit System of a Down.

Hamasyan was born in Gyumri, near Armenia’s border with Turkey. Neither of his parents were musicians (his father was a jeweller, his mother a clothes designer), and he grew up listening to his father’s heavy rock collection – Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple and Queen. By three, he was picking out pop melodies on the family piano; from six he attended a specialist music school. “We can be grateful to the old Soviet Union that we had classical education systems in place,” he says. “Everybody had a piano in their house, whether they were musicians or not.” By the age of nine he began to immerse himself in jazz, and even guested as a singer with a local big band (“I was this weird, talented kid who sang a couple of standards and a Beatles song, Oh Darling”).

As a young teenager, he moved on from bebop to experiment with Armenian folk music. “My idea was to try to weave these folk melodies into jazz improvisations,” he says. “My first attempts were terrible! The challenge is that folk music is modal, with no chord changes. So you are trying to find harmonies for a music that’s not supposed to have harmonies. That’s tough.” Few Armenian jazz musicians had tried this; instead Tigran was inspired by classical composers Avet Terterian and Arno Babajanian, who “took Armenian folk music into insane territory”.

At 16, he left to study in California (“there are probably more Armenians there than in Armenia,” he jokes), where he has lived ever since. He quickly made connections on the LA jazz scene, recording his first album when he was only 18. His fifth and latest, Shadow Theatre, features a varied lineup, mixing Hamasyan’s piano and wordless vocals with touches of baroque, jazz-rock and electronica. One Armenian folk song (Drip) is transformed into juddering dubstep, another (Pagan Lullaby) resembles Sigur Rós. But, if the settings are expansive, the melodies are simple and direct.

“I’ve been stripping away layers of complexity with each album,” he says. “You can play a bunch of fast stuff or write a complicated melody, but the musical part of that is to make it flow naturally.” He will often do that by singing along with himself as he solos, in the style of Keith Jarrett or Glenn Gould. “Singing along can help to make your improvisation sound natural,” he says. Sometimes you can hear him beatboxing while he plays, or singing rhythmic patterns in the style of an Indian tabla player. He will often deliberately restrict himself to a small range, soloing within the space of a single octave. “When I solo I tend not to think of myself as a pianist. In my head, I’m playing a violin or a guitar, say. Often it’s all about just finding a sound and sticking in that register.”

Hamasyan has spent much of the past year back in Armenia, which has made him all the more fascinated by its traditional music. “Folk is like the first form of expression. Nowadays, if you’re a musician, you’re supposed to be cool or special or something,” he says. “But, back in the day, everybody was a musician. Every action, every ceremony, was accompanied by music. You watch women churning butter and there’s a folk song that accompanies each movement in that process. You go to parts of rural Armenia and you see people singing and harmonising, spontaneously. It’s amazing, like watching the birth of music itself.”

Shadow Theatre is released on 4 November on Verve. Hamasyan plays Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, on 19 November as part of the London jazz festival.

Armenian Chapel of the rue Jean Goujon, Paris , engraving after Albert Gilbert, architect, 1906, 31 x 17 cm. al. Sarkis Boghossian, Paris

In 1902, a correspondent of the Armenian newspaper of Constantinople “Manzou-Meiosis Effniar” wrote: “When will we have our Holy Church in Paris?” This issue did not remain unanswered. A wealthy Armenian (oil) businessman from Baku, named Alexander Mantachiants, discovered that the small Armenian community in Paris did not have its own church. Finding these circumstances unacceptable Mantachiants along with the poet Siamanto, singer Arménag Shah-Mouradian and musicologist Komitas, decided they could not remain deaf to this call.  Religious and deeply patriotic, Mantachiants was touched by the request of the priest of Paris, he vowed to fund the construction of an Armenian Apostolic Church in Paris.

He acquired property near the Champs Elysees for the astronomical price of 450.000 F  and hired architects to design a church. The young French architect Albert Désiré Guilbert was chosen for the task. The first stone was laid on October 5^th 1902 and completed in 1904. The entire construction cost 1,540,000 F. The pediment of the church, 25 m long and 13 m wide, is symbolically engraved with the holy seventh letter of the Armenian alphabet ” է” (“to be “, a reference to God). The church was named after St. John the Baptist.

Today, the Armenian community in Paris is one of the largest in the world and the church is its centerpiece.

See Pictures Bellow!

Mesrop Mashtots Fresco.

Georgi Matevosjan

Architect by profession, Matevosjan started his artistic career as interior designer. Later on, however, he has devoted his talents to creating designer jewelry and incredibly beautiful paintings. Georgi Matevosjan was born in Baku to Armenian parents, the son of the USSR State Prize laureate writer Hrant Matevosyan. In 1975 he graduated from the Volgograd Institute specializing in architecture. Worked as an architect, designer, studied jewelry making and small plastics. As a student, he did not part with a notebook, constantly sketching portraits of his friends. Today, the work of the Armenian painter are in museums and private collections in Russia, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Sweden, Italy, France, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Canada, America and Japan.

Influenced by his work with metals and precious stones , Matevosjan gives a great deal of attention to light. He studies its passage through transparent media such as water, glass and curtains; its reflection off and refraction in mirrors , metals and glass; and its fading away in darkness. His preoccupation with light has also influenced his choice of objects and scenes. He paints tears, glass, bubbles, balloons and transparent balls sous-pended in mountains and oceans or on the smooth bodies and faces of women, to express inner feelings, moods and cynicism. Besides exploring the depth of the human psyche, his paintings also search for solutions to the burning problems of environmental degradation. His preferred colors are shades of yellow, ochre and earth brown, and his painting style embodies elements of Surrealism , Cubism and Impressionism.

The Armenian artist Georgi Matevosyan is certainly a poet. Impeccable master of painting ethereal, able to animate everything with the touch of his talent, whether it is a painting, precious stone or metal. He creates unimaginable shades and shapes, shattering stereotypes, his art is a free flight of the imagination.

Two vanishing points

Wide-open distance

Ringing transformation

Viola piano

Mannequin

Philosophy of Music

Morning comes

Nightly routine hides the dream

Wind

The position of the triumphant time

Warm return

Temple of Love

Elegance

Transient state of rest

Every day of your awakening

Crystal duo of ascending silence

Fantasy

Caught in desire

The last ray of eastern voluptuousness

Celebration of intimate candles

Memory of the future

Pond

Birth of trees

In the crimson contour of silence

A look at the history

Pathway

Osculation

Decoration of the sky

Touch

Crystal

Birth of Light

Whirlwind of spring colors

Georgi Matevosjan

Unanimity of views

Burning passion

Bowl

Folds

Saxon porcelain

Golden eternity

Forest nymph

Leaves of the dragon

On the edge of glory

Dandelions

Old Castle breathes life

Thorny path

Silhouette

Reverberation

Still life

Still life

Nostalgia for the Future

Irreversible glow

Georgi Matevosjan

Drops

Immeasurability

Resonance

Japanese

Armenia at the center of the world according to Greek historian, geographer, philosopher, politician, astronomer and teacher, from 1st century BCE. Acclaimed as the greatest polymath of his age. The map was produced in 1630, according to ideas by Posidonius and drawn by Petrus Bertius.

This map of the world according to Posidonius 1st c. BCE

Stunning short film, a visual poem, true form of cinematic art in my humble opinion. Directed by Dessil Basmadjian based on a poem of Garik Basmadjian.

Freedom fighter, statesman and political thinker General Garegin Nzhdeh (1886-1955) was one of the pivotal figures in the Armenian quest for an independent Armenian nation and a revolutionary leader in Armenia, Bulgaria and Russia.

BY ALISA GEVORGYAN
Source: Armenian Public Radio

Findings at archaeological site in Armenia could shed light on a number of questions

YEREVAN—A massive cemetery found as a result of three years of archaeological excavations in the ancient site of Karmir Blur (Red Hill) in Yerevan is of huge scientific significance, says Hakob Simonyan, head of the expedition and Director of the Historical Cultural Heritage research center of the Ministry of Culture. According to him, the archaeological materials found at the site could give an answer to a number of questions about the residents of the area, their perceptions of the afterlife and their burial rituals.

Karmir Blur or Teishebaini, which is presently located near the city of Yerevan, was a provincial capital of the 9th to 6th century B.C. Kingdom of Van (better known as Urartu).

Hakob Simonyan says the Kingdom of Van has always been in the spotlight of scientists. However, no graveyard had ever been found on the huge territory until the decision was made to construct a highway bypassing Yerevan, which could only pass through Karmir Blur.

As a result of three months of research, scholars have found densely located tombs. There are 500 tombs just under the road being constructed.

The kings of Van viewed the Ararat Valley as a granary, where the finest wines were produced. Hakob Simonyan says half a million liters of wine was kept in the pantries of Karmir Blur. Huge reserves of grain were also kept in the city.

Among the most important items found at the site were the “four idols” – tuff tiles with holes in the shape of eyes. Scientists assume the idols protected the peace of the dead. It’s now unclear whether the people buried in the cemetery were from the same family, nationality or represented completely different ethnic groups. The answer to this question will become clear after a DNA test. Samples have already been sent to Copenhagen.

According to Hakob Simonyan, Karmir Blur contains exceptional archaeological material, which could give answers to a number of questions. He says as many as 5,000 artifacts could be found at the site. Where they will be kept is a different question. Scholars are confident that it’s high time for Armenia – a country with a powerful cultural heritage – to have Anthropological and Urartian Centers.

As for the excavations at Karmir Blur, Hakob Simonyan says both the Eurasian Bank and Yerevan City Hall have promised that no historic monument will be destroyed and the road will be constructed only after the area is fully investigated.

A large residence of the viceroy of the king of Urartu in Karmir Blur -Armenia is starting to emerge from the ground, revealing long lost secrets of an ancient Armenian kingdom.

9th century BC. Urartu burial in Karmir Blur Armenia

In order to redirect traffic from the loaded roads of Armenia’s capitol, officials in Yerevan commissioned a construction of a highway near the territory of Karmir Blur. Before the construction could commence, experts were tasked to investigate the area and carry out several excavations. When in August archaeologists started to investigate the site, they discovered that Charbahe cemetery and the surrounding areas once served as a burial place during the Urartu period in the 9th century BC. 

Nowadays the kingdom of Van that was known to the Babylonians as Urartu, is attracting attention from European, American, Russian, Iranian and Turkish scientists. Urartu is mentioned several times in the Bible as Ararat. On one occasion it is described as the country of Noah’s descend after the deluge. In the trilingual Behistun inscription, carved in 521 BC by the order of Darius the Great of Persia, the country referred to as Urartu in Assyrian is called Arminiya in Old Persian and Harminuia in Elamite. Armenia, Urartu, Ararat and Herminuia are therefore synonymous.

Archaeologists leading the excavation discovered in recent months around 500 tombs, each containing at least 2 individuals. Some of which belonged to the upper class of the Ararat kingdom. During these excavations about 1,000 items were recovered, with many more yet to be extracted. These artifacts together with the human remains will help to reveal many secrets of the ancient Armenian kingdom.

The tombs resemble chambers, filled with earth, and the top covered with huge boulders plastered with lime. The knees of the discovered skeletons are bent, females lie on the left side while males on the right side. Buried with them were also servants, whose bones were divided into several parts. Aside the buried, idols were placed made of tuff tiles with holes in the shape of eyes.  They were supposed to protect their owners from evil spirits in the afterlife. Among the finds, archaeologists recovered the skeleton of a very tall woman. She wore a chased belt and a copper bracelet on her ankle.

The researches also found a cellar and a horse stable. Barns were filled with large stocks of grain and a huge area which indicates that more than half a million liters of wine was kept there.  Yet another section of the tombs, probably belonged to the workers of the ancient city.

The first stage of excavations is finished. The results have already sparked the interest of foreign scientists. Hermitage director Mikhail Piotrovsky was in Yerevan during the excavation and could not hide his excitement and amazement of the findings. 

These sensational discoveries have also sparked several questions in regards to where the artifacts, numbers of which exceeds five thousand, should be kept and where they should be displayed. Some have suggested that it is high time for Armenia to create Anthropological and Urartian Centers of their own.

These new findings will be a vital source of information on the origins, genetics and ethnicity of the people of kingdom of Van. From previous excavations of Karmir Blur we know to what civilization and culture citizens of Teishebaini belonged. These excavations will also provide comprehensive information about the funeral rites and the ancient´s representation of the afterlife.

It is worthy to note that previously no anthropological studies have been conducted in regards to the population of Kingdom of Van. Due to the large amount of discovered artifacts scientists are now able to formulate serious conclusions. Some samples from the graves are already sent to Copenhagen for DNA research.  The analysis will shed light on ancient Armenian ethnos.

To be able to conduct such research domestically Armenian scientists consider it also necessary to create an anthropological laboratory in their own country. After all, Armenia is the heir of a huge archaeological, historical and cultural heritage. Secrets of which are gradually coming to light. 

Images from the burial:

Source: http://imyerevan.com/ru/society/view/5117

Bellow the text that was used in the video including parts that didn’t made it into the video and a selection of maps of terrestrial Paradise:

The Biblical account of the garden of Eden has for long preoccupied the minds and imaginations of theologians, believers and countless adventurers of the past. Many have attempted to identify the location of the garden and put forward theories ranging from the underground, the north pole and even the surface of the moon. However if the location of the terrestrial paradise is to be understood according to scriptures, there is only one place that fits the description. That place is historic Armenia.

The Bible mentions a spring in the Garden which parts into four major rivers, including Tigris and the Euphrates. Tigris and Euphrates both have their headwaters in the area surrounding Mt. Ararat in historic Armenia. Many Biblical scholars have therefore placed the garden of Eden in Armenia. They have argued that posterity of Seth and Noah’s ark have remained close to Eden. Thus the birthplace of mankind is also the place of rebirth. These accounts are supported by ancient believes of the people of Mesopotamia, who often considered the Armenian Highlands to be the dwellings of the Gods (Cyclopædia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, 1894).

In his memoirs Lord Byron writes:

“If the Scriptures are rightly understood, it was in Armenia that Paradise was placed. – Armenia, which has paid as dearly as the descendants of Adam for that fleeting participation of its soil in the happiness of him who was created from its dust. It was in Armenia that the flood first abated, and the dove alighted. But with the disappearance of Paradise itself may be dated almost the unhappiness of the country ; for though long a powerful kingdom, it was scarcely ever an independent one, and the satraps of Persia and the pachas of Turkey have alike desolated the region where God created man in his own image.”  – Armenian exercises and poetry, 1886

• Lord Byron (1886) Armenian exercises and poetry

That Armenia was once considered the location of terrestrial Paradise can be attested from old maps and theological records. See blow for the maps.

Alessandro Scafi (2007) in his work “Finishing the unfinished: Paradise in Fausto da Longiano’s vernacular translation of Piccolomini’s Cosmographia (1544), describes Fausto and his thoughts on the location of terrestrial Eden. He writes:

“As a possible location, Fausto (1544) proposed Armenia, a region which in the sixteenth century included the area between the upper Euphrates and Lake Urmia, the Black Sea and the Syrian desert. The identity of two of the four rivers named in Genesis, the Tigris and the Euphrates, was uncontroversial, and both rivers were known to rise in Armenia. The more problematic Gihon and Pishon could be identified amongst the local rivers (for Fausto, the Araxes and the Cyrus).”

• Alessandro Scafi (2007), Finishing the unfinished: Paradise in Fausto da Longiano’s vernacular translation of Piccolomini’s Cosmographia (1544)

Joseph E. Duncan (1972) likewise recounts:

“Both Pererius and Lapide had suggested Armenia as logical location for Eden and paradise. Johann Vorstius, maintaining that Scripture clearly stated that the great river arose in Eden itself, also contended that Eden and paradise must be in Armenia.

One of the most complete of the earlier arguments for an Armenian paradise was offered by Carver in a tract publication in 1666… He found the site of Eden in Armenia Major, on the south side of Mount Taurus. He speculated that paradise might have been transformed into a nitrous lake which Pliny had said was located in this area.”

• Joseph E. Duncan (1972) Milton’s Earthly Paradise: A Historical Study of Eden, Univ Of Minnesota Press; Minnesota Archive Editions edition (July 6, 1972)

17th century French scholar Joseph Pitton de Tournefort writes:

“And if we may suppose the Terrestrial Paradise to have been a place of considerable extent, and to have retained some of its beauties, notwithstanding the alterations made in the Earth at the Flood, and since that time; I don’t know a finer spot to which to assign this wonderful place, than the Country of the Three-Churches (Echmiadzin-Armenia), about twenty French leagues distant from the Heads of Euphrates and Araxes, and near as many from the Phasis.” – A Voyage Into the Levant (1741)

In their Encyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical literature (1894), John McClintock and James Strong recount nine principal theories of the proposed location of earthly paradise. Armenia is considered the most likely location of Eden.

“The opinion which fixes Eden in Armenia we have placed first, because it is that which has obtained most general support, and seems nearest the truth. (See No. vi.) For if we may suppose that, while Cain moved to the East (Gen. iv, IG), the posterity of Seth remained in the neighborhood of the primeval seat of mankind, and that Noah’s ark rested not very far from the place of his former abode, then Mount Ararat in Armenia becomes a connecting point between the antediluvian and post-diluvian worlds (Gen. viii, 4)”

Eden is shortly described as follows:

“Eden was a tract of country, and that in the most eligible part of it was the Paradise, the garden of all delights, in which the Creator was pleased to place his new and pre-eminent creature, with the inferior beings for his sustenance and solace.”

• John McClintock & James Strong (1894) Cyclopædia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature.

“As nearly as we can gather from the Scriptural description, Eden was a tract of country, the finest imaginable, laying probably between the 35th and the 40th degree of N. latitude, of such moderate elevation, and 80 adjusted, with respect to mountain ranges, and watersheds, and forests, as to preserve the most agreeable and salubrious conditions of temperature and all atmospheric changes. Its surface must therefore have been constantly diversified by hill and plain. In the finest part of this land of Eden, the Creator had formed an enclosure, probably by rocks, and forests, and rivers, and had filled it with every product of nature conducive to use and happiness. Due moisture, of both the ground and the air, was preserved by the streamlets from the nearest hills, and the rivulets from the more distant; and such streamlets and rivulets, collected according to the levels of the surrounding country (“it proceeded from Eden”) flowed off afterwards in four larger streams, each of which thus became the source of a great river.

Here, then, in the south of Armenia, after the explication we have given, it may seem the most suitable to look for the object of our exploration, the site of Paradise.”

• John McClintock & James Strong (1894) Cyclopædia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature.

That the Biblical rivers cannot be identified with Nile (as some would claim) is described as follows:

“That the Hiddekel (this name is said to be still in use among the tribes who live upon its banks—Col.Chesney, Erp. to Tigris and Euphrates, i, 13) is the Tigris, and the Phrath the Euphrates, has never been denied, except by those who assume that the whole narrative is a myth which originated elsewhere, and was adapted by the Hebrews to their own geographical notions. As the former is the name of the great river by which Daniel sat (Dan. x, 4), and the latter is the term uniformly applied to the Euphrates in the Old Testament, there seems no reason to suppose that the appellations in Gen. ii, 14 are to be understood in any other than the ordinary sense. One circumstance in the description is worthy of observation. Of the four rivers, one, the Euphrates, is mentioned by name only, as if that were sufficient to identify it. The other three are defined according to their geographical positions, and it is fair to conclude that they were therefore rivers with which the Hebrews were less intimately acquainted. If this be the case, it is scarcely possible to imagine that the Gihon, or, as some say, the Pison, is the Nile, for that must have been even more familiar to the Israelites than the Euphrates, and have stood as little in need of a definition.”

• John McClintock & James Strong (1894) Cyclopædia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature.

That Eden is described in a post-deluvian manner as opposed to the Lutherian idea of geography being altered due to the flood is explained as follows:

“Nor will it do to suppose that in former ages great changes had taken place, which have so disguised the rivers in question that their course, connection, and identity are not now traceable ; for two of the rivers, at least, remain to this day essentially the same as in all historic times, and the whole narrative of Moses is evidently adapted to the geography as it existed in his own day, being constantly couched in the present tense, and in terms of well-known reference as landmarks.

Luther, rejecting the forced interpretations on which the theories of his time were based, gave it as his opinion that the garden remained under the guardianship of angels till the time of the Deluge, and that its site was known to the descendants of Adam ; but that by the flood all traces of it were obliterated. But, as before remarked, the narrative is so worded as to convey the idea that the countries and rivers spoken of were still existing in the time of the historian. It has been suggested that the description of the garden of Eden is part of an inspired antediluvian document (Morren, Rosenmiiller’s Geogr. i, 92). The conjecture is beyond criticism ; it is equally incapable of proof or disproof, and has not much probability to recommend it. The effects of the flood in changing the face of countries, and altering the relations of land and water, are too little known at present to allow any inferences to be drawn from them.”

• John McClintock & James Strong (1894) Cyclopædia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature.

In his memoirs “Armenia, travels and studies” famous Brit  H. F. B. Lynch writes:

“What attracted me to Armenia? One inducement was curiosity : what lay beyond those mountains, drawn in a wide half-circle along the margin of the Mesopotamian plains? The sources of the great rivers which carried me southwards, a lake with the dimensions of an inland sea, the mountain of the Ark, the fabled seat of Paradise.”

• Armenia, travels and studies H. F. B. Lynch (1901)

During her travels in Armenia, missionary Maria A. West wrote:

“This is the Christian Crusade of the nineteenth century ; far exceeding in moral sublimity that of the olden time, when the kings of the earth banded themselves together to rescue the Holy Land from the hand of the Turk ! How wonderful that the Great Commission, the Master s last Command, uttered in this very land, more than eighteen hundred years ago, should have been caught up, and re-echoed in the New World, by a nation not yet a century old ! That scores of its sons and daughters should carry the “ glad tidings” from the Caspian and Black Seas on the north, beyond the Mediterranean on the south : In the country of Eden, and Ararat, the cradle of the human race.”

• Maria a. West (1875), Romance of Missions: or, Inside Views of Life and Labor, Land of Ararat.

“A lovely lake, like that of Galilee, sleeps within their embrace; a branch of the Euphrates curves its gleaming arm around this wondrous mosaic of emerald and agate, carnelian and onyx, with the golden sunlight resting upon embowered villages, of which we count twenty-five without, and fifty with the aid of a glass, their beaten paths crossing and recrossing the plain, in every direction.

• Maria a. West (1875), Romance of Missions: or, Inside Views of Life and Labor, Land of Ararat.

And this lost Paradise, so long trodden under foot by the Destroyer, “her hedges broken down, so that all they which pass by the way do pluck her, wasted by the boar out of the wood, and devoured by the wild beast of the field:” -This vineyard, planted “eastward” -by God s “right hand” -at the opening of man’s history – (“a river went out to water it;” and from thence it was parted and became four heads ; and the fourth river is “Euphrates:”) -This long-deserted Garden is to be “regained” for the “second Adam,” and made to “blossom as the rose;” to “ blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing ; the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon ; and the REDEEMED shall walk there.”

• Maria a. West (1875), Romance of Missions: or, Inside Views of Life and Labor, Land of Ararat.

Our national birthday of freedom finds us on these distant heights in the land which was the cradle of the human race the land of Ararat, the country, if not the Garden of Eden, where we may suppose our first parents wandered after their expulsion from Paradise, and obtained their bread by the sweat of their brow. And we, their self-exiled children, are striving to undo the mischief which their disobedience brought on these fair plains, and among these smiling valleys and rugged mountains.

• Maria a. West (1875), Romance of Missions: or, Inside Views of Life and Labor, Land of Ararat.

The Armenian language belongs to the Indo-Germanic family, enriched with many Sanscrit words, but having no affinity to the Semitic, or any of the more modern tongues. The people claim that it was the language of paradise, and will be the language of the heavenly world.

• Maria a. West (1875), Romance of Missions: or, Inside Views of Life and Labor, Land of Ararat.

Selection of antique maps of terrestrial Paradise:

A Map of the Terrestrial Paradise, Emmanuel Bowwen (1780)

Fine map of the Middle East, including the Holy Land, Cyprus, Iran and Irak, etc.
Philippe Buache was one of the most active proponents of the so-called “school of theoretical cartography” active in mid-18th century France. Published by Dezauche and engraved by Marie F. Duval.

Paradis Terrestre by Desbrulins, F. 1700-1799 source Bibliothèque nationale de France

Eden in Armenia 8th century world map from Turin

Eden in Armenia 8th century world map from Turin

A General Map for Information about the History of the Saints, Phillippe Buache, Published in 1783 in Paris.

Map of the Earthly Paradise by Moyse, 1724 Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France

Map of the Earthly Paradise by Moyse, 1724 Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France

Antique map of the Paradise, Huet Stark-man, 1725 ‘Kaarte van Het Aardsche Paradys’

Athanasius Kircher, 1675 Topographia Paradisi terrestris juxta mentem et conjecturas

L’Arménie, jardin d’Eden, page de l’Atlas de cartographie historique de l’Arménie, Jacques Khanzadian, copie de carte ancienne, 1675

Map from the atlas Theatre of the World by Abraham Ortelius featuring Eden in Armenia. Antwerp, 1601

Овальная карта мира Беата (776 г.) из «Атласа истории географических открытий и исследований». Москва, 1959

Увеличенный фрагмент той же карты, с подписью «Armenia regio».

The Manchester (a.k.a. Altamira) Beatus mappamundi, ca. 1175,
The Manchester (a.k.a. Altamira) Beatus mappamundi, ca. 1175, John Rylands Library, MS. Lat. 8, fols. 43v-44, Manchester, England

The world map from the Saint-Sever Beatus painted c. 1050 A.D. as an illustration to Beatus’s work at the Abbey of Saint-Sever in Aquitaine

Carte Du Paradis Terrestre Suivant le Systeme de l Auteur et Execute par P. Starck-man

The map Tabula Paradisi Terrestris justa Systema Auctoris incisa a P. Stark-Man was printed late in the 18th century, probably around 1775.

Topographia Paradisi terrestris juxta mentem et conjecturas authoris, Kircher, Athanasius 1675

Antique map of the Garden of Eden by Calmet – 1789

Moxon’s Paradise of the Garden of Eden with the Countries circumjacent inhabited by the Patriarchs, printed in 1690

The Terrestrial Paradise (c.1780) by Louis Brion de la Tour from the ‘Histoire Universelle depuis le Commencement du Monde’

Ecclesiastical map of the first ages of the world, by S. Robert Vangondy 1762

Ancient Armenian drawing of what resembles the story of Adam and Eve.

A 1766 portrait of Rousseau wearing an Armenian costume by Allan Ramsay.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a social philosopher, moralist, writer, and composer of the 18th-century. His political philosophy influenced the French Revolution as well as the overall development of modern political, sociological, and educational thought. His ‘Discourse on the Origin of Inequality’ and his ‘On the Social Contract’ are cornerstones in modern political and social thought.

Rousseau was a successful composer of music, who wrote seven operas as well as music in other forms, and made contributions to music as a theorist. During the period of the French Revolution, Rousseau was the most popular of the philosophes among members of the Jacobin Club. Rousseau was interred as a national hero in the Panthéon in Paris, in 1794, 16 years after his death.

This sympathetic portrait of Rousseau in Armenian costume was painted by the highly talented Scottish artist Allan Ramsay. He is wears the fur hat and fur trimmed jacket of his favorite Armenian costume. This attire had aroused the great curiosity of London society following Rousseau’s arrival in Britain in 1766. Ramsay painted this portrait as a gift for his close friend David Hume, Rousseau’s host in London.

” The Armenian plateau stands equidistant from the Euxine and the Caspianseas on the north, and between the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean on the south. “With the first it is connected by the Acampsis, with the second by the Araxes, with the third by the Tigris and Euphrates, the latter of which also serves as an outlet toward the countries on the Mediterranean coast.

Viewed with reference to the dispersion of the nations, Armenia is the true center of the world; and it is a significant fact that at the present day Ararat is the great boundary-stone between the empires of Russia, Turkey, and Persia. “

                – Cyclopædia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature (1894)

see maps bellow:

World according to Strabo (64/63 BC – c. AD 24)

Antique world map according to Herodotus (484–425 BC) by L. Fig, Hachette, 1884

Map according to Eratosthenes 276 – 194 BC., reproduced by A. Villemin in Earth and seas, or physical description of the world L. Figuier, Paris, Librairie Hachette, 1884

This map of the world according to Posidonius 1st c. BCE

This is an interesting map, one of the earliest maps in the form of an animal (or a human). This map as it is quit creative. Armenia is situated at the brains of the Pegasus.

Title: Asia Secunda Pars Terrae in Forma Pegasi [Asia in the Form of Pegasus]

Map Maker: Heinrich Bunting

Date: Hannover / 1581

Description:

Unusual variant edition of Bunting’s map of Asia in the shape of the mythical winged horse Pegasus. The horse is drawn fairly realistically, with a good deal of imagination required to view the map. The head represents Asia Minor with the brains in Armenian Highlands. The wings portray Central Asia and Siberia. The Caspian Sea appears horizontally between the wings and the saddle. Persia is delineated on the horse blanket with the forelegs forming Arabia. The hind legs represent the Indian and Malay Peninsulas. 

The map is among the earliest representations of a land mass in the form of an animal (or human).

Captain Jim Chankalian was promoted to captain in the U.S. Army for his service during the Spanish-American War in 1898, and later with great success and honors he participated in the Armenian liberation movement. Afterwards he served in the Democratic Liberal Party of America, AGBU and the Armenian Church, until his death on May 10, 1947.

Captain Jim Chankalian, Armenian hero of the Armenian liberation movement.

Born in Tigranakert as Bedros Chankalian, James (Jim) and his family emigrated to the United States. He graduated from an American high school and then entered the military academy to become an officer in the United States.

Being an experienced soldier of the U.S. Army, Chankalian also became a well-known figure in the Armenian community of New York. After retiring with the rank of captain, he was offered an important position in the company “Powers & Co.” and build a comfortable life for himself. In 1915, the Reformed party Gnchak, in collaboration with the Regional Committee of the Constitutional Democratic Party (Ramgavar) of the United States requested to send Jim Chankaliana with a special mission, first to the Caucasus, and then to Van, to fight for the Armenian liberation movement. Chankalian gladly accepted the offer, giving up his high position and a comfortable life in America. Taking with him a group of experienced volunteers who came from Western Armenia, he reached Van at the appointed time and was met by the heroic leader of Armenian self-defense forces, Armenak Egaryan.

After consultation with Egaryan, Chankalian put his extensive military experience in service of the heroic struggle of the Armenians of Van and became the adviser to Egaryan. As such he became instrumental in the formation of the Yerkrapah regiment (Defenders of the Motherland) and was successful in the accomplishment of his military mission.

In 1917 he returned to the U.S., but as soon as he learned about the plan of formation of the Armenian Legion in France, he decided to join. The legion was to go to Palestinian front to fight on the side of the Allies (France, England, Russia) against the German and Turkish troops. Chankalian who enjoyed unconditional respect and reverence of the American-Armenian community and the Armenian political parties, was appointed head of the detachment, consisting of US-Armenian volunteers. On July 9, 1917 Chankalian along with the volunteers, under his leadership, boarded a French ship and headed to Marseille. From there he went to Port Said and joined the Legion. They were transported to Cyprus and met with the rest of the volunteers of the French Foreign Legion.

By order of General Allenby, commander of the united forces of the Allied Powers in the Middle Eastern front, on September 14, 1918 the Armenian volunteers were transported to Palestine, where five days later, they went on the attack against German and Turkish forces in Arar. With minimal losses they have achieved a glorious victory in the Battle of the Arar.

As the World War I ended in November 1918, the Armenian volunteers were transferred to the Palestinian front in Beirut. From there, the British ships took them in groups, through Alexandretta (Iskenderun) to the mountains and plains of Cilicia. Legionnaires were welcomed in Adana with the Armenian tricolor flags. Turks were already demoralized an the Armenian Legion was about to take all of Cilicia under their control. Implementation of the plan to establish an autonomous and independent Armenian Cilicia was undertaken under the guidance of Mihran Damadyan. In order to bring this plan to fruition, it was necessary to gather a strong fighting force, which was about to become a reality, with such battle-tested heroes as Chankalian, Andranik, Egaryan, Esai Yagubyan etc. However, the Allied Powers had other intentions. They have prevented the arrival of Andranik, Egaryana and others in Cilicia, ending the prospects of Armenian success in Cilicia.

Disappointed with the vanishing dream to create an independent Cilicia, Chankalian returned to the United States, with his achievements recorded in the history of the Armenian liberation struggle. Later, as one of the leading figures of the Democratic Liberal Party of America, Chankalian organized fundraising efforts in support of the first Republic of Armenia.

Chankalian continued his activities for the benefit of the motherland. He became the driving force behind the formation of the American-Armenian National Council and served as its president. He also became the first president of the Central Committee of the Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU) and devoted his time to the service of the Armenian Church. This great patriot, endowed with exceptional military skill, died in New York in 1947 at an advanced age, leaving behind a great legacy of unforgettable service for his people.

source: Armeniangc.com

Grave of Captain Jim Chankalian