Samvel Karapetian was a researcher and expert of Armenian medieval architecture who specialized in the study of Armenian historical monuments in Armenia, Artsakh, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkey, and Iran.

He was born in Yerevan on July 30, 1961. He graduated from the Missak Manouchian School in 1978 and threw himself into the work of surveying and cataloging artifacts of Armenian history and architecture for the next decades. Karapetian surveyed and catalogued thousands of artifacts of Armenian history and architecture during the course of more than two decades.

When he conducted his initial fieldwork in Artsakh in 1979, he discovered that the authorities of Azerbaijan considered the Armenian sites and monuments in this region as belonging to their own Christian Caucasian Albanian ancestors and that Armenian visitors were discouraged.