Open Letter to USC Pacific-Asia Museum

Good morning,

I visited your beautiful museum and the photo exhibition recently with my family.

On a wall-size “Silk Road/Trade Routes” map, I saw the “Are you hungry yet?” phrase in various languages. One of them was Turkish. It puzzled me, since there are no medieval Turkish sources, for they had an alphabet only in 1938! Thus, that phrase was historically misleading. Moreover, Armenia, which is supposed to be on the map with its commercial capital city Ani, a trade hub on the Silk Road, was not represented, even though the Armenian alphabet was invented in AD 405.

As I am planning a field trip to your elegant museum in March, for my 29 middle school students, I wonder if the museum would care to add the Armenian phrase on that map making it richer and inclusive.

For me it will be a great pleasure to stand in front of that map, and to tell even richer story of medieval merchants and not missing any contributor.

I’m sharing this email with some local Armenian media outlets, since it contains a great story.

I do appreciate your attention,

Yours truly,

Norayr Daduryan
History teacher
Blair High School
Pasadena