Professor of Armenian Studies at Harvard University James Russel will read a lecture entitled “Armenian-Jewish secret or 1000-year-old Armenian text in synagogue and history of Cairo which is told by him”, the Armenian Weekly informs.

In the end of the 19th century a traveling scientist accidentally happened to be in a Cairo synagogue storeroom which was full of middle age manuscripts. The manuscripts could not be just thrown out because they were written with the holy Jewish script. The documents of the Cairo Henize (which literally means treasury) include an initial description of the life and writing culture of the Near East in the beginning of the second millennium.

A short list including Armenian words translated to Judeo-Arabic was found in the Henize. The Armenian words were written in the Jewish script so we know how they are pronounced and the curious choice of vocabulary lets us guess why the list was created. The records in the Henize and the Armenian sources enable us to recreate this context and penetrate into a lost world, he said.