Caucasian Albania, together with Georgia and Armenia, was yet another land that flourished in the Ancient and Medieval Caucasus on the territory of modern Azerbaijan. Since the tenth century A.D. this state disappeared so that only vague memories of its writing, literature and language were left in the sources. In 1975 a fire caused a floor of one of the chapels of St. Catherine’s the Monastery on Mount Sinai to crash and numerous (1100) manuscripts, being sunk into oblivion for more than two centuries and written in different languages were discovered in the lower depository. Among others over 141 Georgian manuscripts and large number of fragments were found. Amid the newly discovered manuscripts two items are of special importance for the international scholarship (N/Sin-13, N/Sin-55) which represents a Georgian-Albanian palimpsest. The lower Albanian text of the manuscripts (the two manuscripts comprise two parts of the same manuscript) was washed out in the 10th century and a Georgian alphabetical Paterikon was written over it. The present lecture highlights the story of the discovery and deciphering of the Caucasian Albanian writing.
Professor Zaza Aleksidze, member of the Georgian National Academy of Sciences, foreign corresponding member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belle-Lettres (France), former Director of the K. Kekelidze Institute of Manuscripts (1988-2006), is currently the Chief Scientific Advisor at the National Centre (former Institute) of Manuscripts and Armenian Studies Project Director of Tbilisi I. Javakhishvili State University (1978-until today). His area of studies is the history and philology of the Christian Caucasus (he has published 15 monographs and numerous articles in the mentioned field).