Treasured Objects: Armenian Life in the Ottoman Empire 100 Years Ago, Vazken Khatchig Davidian, Susan Paul Pattie, Gagik Stepan-Sarkissian, editors (softcover)

The Treasured Objects portrayed in this book provide pathways to visit the lives of Armenians 100 years ago, inspiring connections, dreams, ideas as we imagine the people who once used these items. The Past is both a “foreign country” and home, viewed across decades, miles, and generations. The stuff of memory and forgetting, the objects and their journeys combine narrative, image, and historical context through the stories handed down to their present owners. These Treasured Objects came together first as an exhibition of household items that had accompanied “their” families in the great dispersion of Armenians from their historic homelands. Some escaped earlier but many belong to survivors of the genocide or the destruction of Smyrna (Izmir) in 1922. Here we are given diverse perspectives and experiences from a shared past, richly illustrated with images themselves evocative of both past and present. In these textiles, pots, kitchen implements, books, documents and fine jewelry, we sense the presence of the previous owners and their traces in our lives today