YEREVAN, AUGUST 21, ARMENPRESS. Behind a green door on Jerusalem’s Via Dolorosa, the winding Christian pilgrimage route through the Old City that follows the Way of the Cross, is a small room filled with colorful ceramic bowls, tiles, and other other wares. Many of these pieces contain crosses and Biblical scenes popular with the Christian tourists who frequent this area. For centuries the local Armenian pottery production has brought together the holy city’s major religions in a uniquely artistic way, Tablet reports.

Hagop Karakashian, 50, the locally born manager of this Jerusalem Pottery store, whose grandfather was among the city’s first Armenian ceramics artists, said they are proud of the work they do.

Although Jerusalem’s Armenian Christians are one of the city’s smallest minority groups, their intricately decorated, hand-painted wares are among the most popular souvenirs purchased by visitors to the city. The tiles made here and in a handful of similar workshops decorate many of Jerusalem’s famous buildings, and are used to mark the names of streets in Hebrew, Arabic, and English throughout the Old City. 

With the 100th anniversary of the city’s first Armenian pottery shop now approaching, this school of ceramics has come to play an integral part in the city’s cultural landscape.

“We just hope the city stays quiet so we can do our work in peace,” Karakashian said.

Speaking about his grandfather, painter Megerdish Karakashian, the current owner of the Via Dolorosa workshop, Hagop said for his grandfather making pottery was a good chance to escape the Turkish massacres. Despite the difficulties, the Karakashian family managed to set up a pottery workshop.

Karakashian said he has recently begun training his 15-year-old daughter in the craft, determined to keep it alive.

“She is a teenager now, so I am not sure what she will do. But this pottery has really become a symbol of Jerusalem, and we are very proud of that, and it is important to keep it alive”,  Karakashian said.