An alternative interpretation of the religious context has been proposed by V. Gantzhorn in 1998 : He compared in detail the patterns and symbols of both the Renaissance paintings and surviving carpets with ancient ornaments , for example with Armenian illuminated manuscripts . He concluded that the majority of the surviving and painted carpets alike were produced by Christian Armenian weavers . The hidden Christian symbolism of the carpet patterns had therefore made the so-called " Christian oriental carpets " appropriate adornments for Western European Christian churches . Following this hypothesis , the lack of contemporary Western European written sources , which could otherwise provide independent evidence to support Gantzhorns claims , is explained by the fact that the knowledge of the hidden symbols was subject to oral tradition , and restricted to a small religious élite . The Armenian Genocide had led to the loss of the oral tradition , and , subsequently , to an incorrect " Islamic " attribution of the carpets by the majority of Western art historians . The debate about Gantzhorns hypotheses , which is at times conducted polemically and not entirely free of nationalistic constraints , is still ongoing
Armenian Genocide
Armenian Genocide
Oriental carpets in Renaissance painting