Djulfa is a site in Azerbaijan which boasted the world’s largest collection of exquisitely carved medieval cross-stones as remnants of the areas once-thriving community of Armenian Christians. The site had stood for centuries. In December 2005, Azeri soldiers armed with sledgehammers, dump trucks and cranes destroyed the site, pounding the medieval headstones into rubble and then dumping their pulverized remains into the river.
The author of a report on the destruction in the California Courier, Simon Majhakyan, writes: “This erasure is part of a state-sanctioned war on history…yet unlike the cultural crimes of ISIS or the Taliban, few have heard of it.”
Source: Majhakyan, Simon (July 18, 2019). This year’s UNESCO session was an insult to World Heritage: Djulfa, a sacred site for Armenian Christians is disqualified for consideration because the host of this year’s UNESCO World Heritage Committee session, the government of Azerbaijan, has erased its existence and destroyed tens of thousands of Armenian cultural monuments.
For a further report, see Sawa, Dale Berning (1 Mar 2019). Monumental loss: Azerbaijan and ‘the worst cultural genocide of the 21st century’:
Armenian cultural heritage, including the destruction of tens of thousands of Unesco-protected ancient stone carvings. Guardian.