Syria: The master Armenian potter preserving a centuries-old craft

PanARMENIAN.Net - Al Jazeera has published an article about Syrian-Armenian potter Misak Antranik Petros, a master craftsman, who has passed his art on to the next generation.

Now 85, the Syrian potter of Armenian origin says his family has practised the craft for more than 450 years: “The profession was passed down from one generation to another like an inheritance.”

And, after practising it for more than half a century, it has become a part of him. “I don’t like to clean the clay off my hands because I like the texture,” he says.

A teenaged Petros had to take over from his sick father and become the main potter in the family. Today, he has become a master of the craft and is working to pass his skills on to his sons.

“I am happy when I see the door of the workshop open and my sons working inside,” he said. “This craft deserves to be preserved.”

His workshop – in an old mud-brick house near the Kurdish-administered city of Qamishli, in Syria’s northeastern Hasakeh province – is wondrously cluttered with pots, tools and vases.