"The Connection of Armenian Carpet Images with the Burial Rite" - Liliya AVANESYAN
The article by Lilia Avanesyan is devoted to studying the semantic connection between the pictorial motifs of Armenian carpets from Syunik and Artsakh of the 19th–20th centuries and the funerary rite and archaic notions of death and rebirth.
Introduction and Methodology
The author examines Armenian carpet weaving as a system of signs and ideograms, tracing back to the most ancient agricultural culture and preserving echoes of pre-Christian beliefs about the afterlife. The research material consists of four carpets from Syunik and Artsakh held in museum and private collections: pieces from Spandaryan, Banants, Tatev, and Varanda.
The Symbolism of the Sun and Rebirth
Using the example of the Sisian carpet from Spandaryan, the author analyzes an ornament of octagonal medallions with rhombi and volutes symbolizing a sown field and the movement of the sun. The author draws parallels with:
- rock carvings of Armenia;
- the ornament of the funerary cart from Lchashen (2nd millennium BC);
- tombstones from monastic cemeteries (St. Gayane);
- the famous Pazyryk carpet.
The conclusion drawn is that this ornament serves as a symbol of rebirth and a key to understanding cyclical notions of life and death.
The Carpet as a Ritual Object
Special attention is given to the tradition of making carpets in memory of the dead (the carpet from Banants with a memorial inscription in Grabar, and the 1994 carpet by the master weaver Arus Kazaryan). The author notes the function of the carpet as a "crossing" into the afterlife, confirmed by ethnographic data on the funerary customs of Armenian villages and archaeological finds of textile fragments in Bronze Age burials (Artik, Naver, Lori Berd).
Transformation of Tradition: The 1927 Tatev Carpet
A separate section is devoted to a unique carpet from Tatev, where the traditional composition with a solar medallion and paired serpent images is disrupted by the inclusion of a portrait of V.I. Lenin, Soviet symbols (star, hammer and sickle), and depictions of telephones. The author interprets this as a continuation of the ancient solar cult in new ideological forms, drawing the mythologization of Lenin's image closer to archaic solar cults and folkloric narratives about a "just" solar deity.
Depictions of Cypresses and Crosses
The symbolism of evergreen trees (cypresses) and multiple crosses framing sacred names is examined, linked to the Indo-European cult of trees as vessels for ancestral spirits and the custom of planting cypresses in Armenian cemeteries.
Carpets with Portrait Images of the Deceased
The study concludes with an analysis of a unique group of Artsakh carpets (Varanda, late 19th – early 20th century) featuring a direct full-length depiction of the deceased, the Archangel Gabriel, and paired horses of contrasting colors facing west — a direction symbolically associated with the afterlife.
Conclusion
The author concludes that the Armenian carpets of Syunik and Artsakh represent a unique source for reconstructing archaic notions of death, rebirth, and the cyclical nature of existence, which persisted into the 20th century and even adapted to Soviet ideological symbolism.
The article reveals how the ornaments of 19th–20th century Armenian carpets encode archaic notions of death, passage to the afterlife, and rebirth, weaving them even into Soviet symbolism.
The Carpet as Soul's Passage