The Missing Pages: Art, Cultural Heritage, and the Armenian Genocide

Heghnar Watenpaugh
Art History
UC Davis

This project investigates the cultural heritage of Armenians during and after the genocide of 1915-1922, through an illuminated medieval manuscript, the Zeytun Gospels. Once a revered relic, it survives in two fragments. One fragment is at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, where the Armenian Church is suing for its return. Over the last century, the manuscript and its fragments interacted with individuals and institutions, morphing from a liturgical object, to a monument of national history, to a work of art, and to a memorial object that symbolizes both violence and resilience. This case embodies the defining elements of art history in the 21st century: the materiality of the object, the contest between communities and powerful institutions for control over cultural patrimony, the intersection of cultural heritage with civil and human rights, the impact of the global art market, and the complex ways in which objects mediate individual and group identities.