NAGORNO-KARABAKH GOVERNMENT WILL SUPPORT EXCAVATIONS IN TIGRANAKERT

KarabakhOpen
02-04-2008 10:40:28

The government of Nagorno-Karabakh is likely to provide assistance
for excavation of the ancient town of Tigranakert in NKR. According
to Hamlet Petrosyan, head of the expedition of the Institute of
Archeology and Ethnography of the Armenian National Academy of Science,
the NKR government has allocated 30 million drams (USD 100 thousand)
to continue the digging, Regnum reports.

During the meeting with the archeologists the NKR president Bako
Sahakyan promised to, Hamlet Petrosyan said, noting that unlike
the government of NKR, the government of Armenia is not expected to
provide assistance.

"We have turned to Prime Minister Serge Sargsyan, the National
Assembly, major businessmen, Viva Cell for a number of times but
we were told that the government cannot afford to fund the project,
and others did not even respond," said the head of the expedition.

Last year only the Avetyats Yerkir NGO funded the excavations, and
an area of one hectare was dug, which is only 2 percent of the total
area of the archeological complex, Hamlet Petrosyan said. According to
him, in 2007 the archeologists excavated the citadel and the church,
a single-nave basilica built in the 6th century. All the findings
are now kept at the Museum of History of Artsakh and the Museum of
Shushi after study and restoration.

The church belongs to the Armenian architecture since, the
archeologists say, it is identical to the churches of Yeghvard,
Jrvezh and other Armenian basilicas. The archeologists state that the
early Christian burial places near Tigranakert are evidence that this
territory of Artsakh (the historical name of Nagorno-Karabakh) was
a hotbed of the early Christian civilization, and over 1.5 thousand
years, up to the 14th century, people lived there.

The archeologists say the lack of funding does not allow telling
the international community about the results of excavations and
the Armenian origin of the town, while the government of Azerbaijan
funds media which describe those monuments as the cultural legacy of
the Albanian population which allegedly lived in this territory and
whose predecessors the Azerbaijanis consider themselves.

The excavations in the town of Tigranakert founded by the Armenian
King Tigran the Great began in 2007. The town is near the highway
Stepanakert-Martakert, on the bank of the River Kakhtsraget, 28 km
from the town of Martakert and 4 km from the town of Aghdam.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress