BUST OF ANAHIT GODDESS COMES AS A POLITICAL PROP?
PanARMENIAN.Net
March 20, 2012 – 13:52 AMT
PanARMENIAN.Net – International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation website
published an article by Gayane Abrahamyan on eurasianet.org focusing
on the issue of returning the bust of Anahit goddess to Armenia.
To the British Museum, she is “probably Aphrodite,” the Greek goddess
of love and beauty. To most Armenians, she is Anahit, an ancient
Armenian goddess of fertility. Whoever is on the 1st century BC
female bronze head with wavy hair and aquiline nose, it may serve as
a political prop in Armenia’s looming parliamentary election campaign,
the author claims.
The bust, housed in the British Museum, is featured on Armenian beauty
parlor logos, coins, banknotes and stamps alike. It is better known
in Armenia than even the country s state emblem, a recent TV opinion
poll indicated. If asked, many Armenians most likely assume that the
head, and a companion hand, are in Armenia itself.
And, now, Education Minister Armen Ashotian, a leader of the governing
Republican Party of Armenia, along with the party s Armenian Youth
Foundation (AYF), want to make sure that, one day, they will be. In
February, Ashotian and the AYF launched an online campaign to gather
petition signatures aimed at having the British Museum turn over to
Yerevan ownership of the 1st century BC hand and head.
Ashotian disclaims any political motive, saying the timing of the
petition drive has nothing to do with the upcoming parliamentary
election. It is instead, he says, tied to the arrival of new British
envoys, the husband-wife team of Jonathan Aves and Katherine Leach,
to Yerevan in January. The parliamentary vote is scheduled for May 6,
and the governing coalition, which is dominated by the Republican
Party of Armenia, stands to potentially benefit from the publicity
surrounding the initiative.
“It’s merely my own initiative as a citizen. Not as a politician,”
Ashotian told Armenian media outlets.
Holding posters of the goddess and chanting “Anahit, come home!”
roughly a hundred young people gathered on March 7 in front of
the British Embassy to present Ambassador Leach with a petition of
20,000 signatures. An accompanying letter expressed thanks to the
United Kingdom for keeping an eye on the goddess, but asserted that
“historical justice requires” that the statue’s head and hand “be
repatriated and find refuge in the country of their origin.”
In response, the British Museum has agreed to a temporary exhibition
of Anahit in Armenia, according to the British Embassy. Details are
not yet available.
Ashotian called the exhibition “the first step” in what he predicts
will be “years of consistent work and efforts that will result in
the permanent return of this highly important relic of ours.”
Some local experts scoff at the campaign to recover Anahit,
characterizing it as a sideshow. “Have we run out of all other
issues?” asked Zhores Khachatrian, a leading expert on Armenian art
from the Hellenstic period at the National Academy of Sciences of
Armenia. “It’s pointless and . . . populism that failed from the
start.”
The head and hand were found in the 1870s in what is now northeastern
Turkey, near the current village of Sadak, an area once believed to
have been part of an ancient Armenian kingdom, but also fought over
by Persians, Greeks and Romans.
Khachatrian cautioned that “the Armenian origin of the statute still
has to be proven.” Persia had a similar goddess, called Anakhita,
but Khachatrian believes that “it is more possible that it may be the
statue of a Roman pagan goddess.” The statue was found near the site
of a Roman camp inhabited during the same time period as Anahit’s
supposed creation.
Anelka Grigorian, the director of Armenia’s State History Museum,
expressed similar skepticism about the Anahit initiative. With roughly
5 million visitors per year, according to museum data, the British
Museum brings the goddess’ head and hand far more potential attention
than any Armenia-based museum could, she said.
Legally, Armenia does not have a leg to stand on for laying claim to
Anahit’s head and hand, warned Vahan Gasparian, who leads the Ministry
of Culture’s Agency for the Preservation of Historical-Cultural
Heritage. “Anahit was not illegally exported from our country, nor
was it a war trophy, so that the ministry could try to return it with
references to international treaties,” Gasparian said. “It’s possible
only as an act of good will.”
Culture Minister Hasmik Poghosian, who is not a Republican Party
member, is also lukewarm on the idea. “At this moment, what matters
more than bringing it back to Armenia is proving its Armenian origin,”
Poghosian told EurasiaNet.org. She described the existing British
Museum description of the head as inadequate.
For the governing coalition, the Republican Party of Armenia in
particular, the Anahit campaign can potentially serve as a welcome
distraction from discussion of more substantive issues, including
unemployment. “Obviously, it’s not the primary issue right now,”
political analyst Yervand Bozoian, referring to Anahit. Although
members of the governing coalition are probably not relishing the
need to defend their economic record, Bozoian added that he saw no
clear sign that the Anahit initiative was concocted to divert public
attention from pressing issues. Armenia’s election campaign officially
does not begin until April 8.
The AYF youth activists who are co-sponsoring the campaign cite Egypt
as a precedent that buoys their hopes. “To our knowledge, Egypt has
been able to bring back more than 5,000 items over the past few years;
400 of which were from the British Museum,” said AYF spokesperson
Lilit Grigoryan. “All we are asking for is one item.”
Grigorian, the state museum director, says she can relate to the youth
activists’ “emotional reasoning,” but believes the campaign ultimately
will fail. “Museums are greedy,” Grigorian said. “The British Museum
has bought it and will, naturally, never return it to us, which is
quite normal.”