An international conference on carpet weaving traditions in Armenia will be held in Yerevan on Nov 20-22 2013, for experts from the United States, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and other countries to study Armenia's carpet weaving culture and to discuss modern carpet recovery technologies.
Senior expert of Cultural Values Expertise Center Ashkhunj Poghosyan told journalists on Tuesday that today many ancient Western Armenian carpets are claimed to be Turkish.
"At international auctions Armenian carpets are presented as Caucasian, Turkish, Azerbaijani and even Seljuk. But what ancient Azerbaijani carpets are they talking about if the Azerbaijanis started weaving carpets in the 1890s using mostly Armenian patterns? I am not saying they didn't weave carpets at all before that time, but since they were nomads, they simply could not produce a lot of carpets," Poghosyan said.
The best solution to this problem, according to the expert, would be a museum of Armenian carpet. "The idea to create such a museum was first mentioned in 1981, with almost 2,500 carpets collected for this purpose in the following decade. But when Armenia became independent, that initiative was forgotten. We need an all-national approach to make our carpets known in the world. Here we need not only a museum but lots of books in foreign languages," Poghosyan said.
On July 18 2013 the Government of Armenia gave a start to the project to create an online museum of Armenian carpets. The museum will present over 2,500 carpets, the history of carpet weaving in Armenia as well as different weaving techniques and recovery technologies.
As part of its efforts to popularize Armenian carpets, the Government has also published in Armenian Volkmar Gantzhorn's Christian Oriental Carpet book.