Ancient valuables on sale in Yerevan Vernisage – museum director

Highly valuable ancient items are now freely on sale at the Yerevan Vernisage (an open-air market of souvenirs and other valuables), the director of the historical archaeological museum-reserve Erebouni said Monday, calling for efforts towards handing over the samples to museums.

“Ceramics and bronze dating from different epochs are now on sale in the Vernisage. They are serious archaeological values; yet they are on free sale,” Gagik Gyurjinyan told reporters at a news conference devoted to the International Museum Day.

As an important measure for preserving the historically important valuables, he first of all called for relevant legislative efforts.

Gyurjinyan further highlighted the need of elaborating the right information and historic guidelines for foreign visitors to Armenia’s museums.

“What we are very much interested in is how many tourists have visited Armenia and how much money they leave here. It is really of interest to us to have many visitors and attract much money. There is however one problem, specifically, the kind of information we provide to visitors to our museums,” he noted,

The museum’s director said he expects historians to develop standardized information  guidelines to be introduced to foreign guests. He said the measure is particularly important against the backdrop of Turkey and Georgia’s aggressive cultural policies.

“Ceramics and bronze dating from different epochs are now on sale in the Vernisage. They are serious archaeological values; yet they are on free sale,” Gagik Gyurjinyan told reporters at a news conference devoted to the International Museum Day. As an important measure for preserving the historically important valuables, he first of all called for ...