Geniza Lab

Recto contains a piyyuṭ for Yom Kippur in the hand of ʿEli b. ʿAmram he-Ḥaver. Verso contains his poem in honour of ʿEli b. Mevasser

Deed of indemnity granted by Saʿīd b. Yiṣḥaq to his brother Burayk. Written and signed by Palṭiel b. Efrayim he-Ḥaver. Location: Fusṭāṭ. From the court of Shemarya b. Elḥanan, ha-Rav ha-Rosh, who also signed. Dated: Tuesday, 14 Elul 4762 AM = 1313 Seleucid (= 25 August 1002 CE). Also witnessed by Shelomo b. David ha-Levi, Aharon b. Moshe, Ghālib b. Wuhayb, with validation by Yehoshuaʿ b. [...] and Shemuel b. Yaʿaqov. On verso there are jottings. (Information from CUDL.) Note that when Mann refers to T-S 24.11 (e.g., Mann, Jews, vol. 2, p. 91), he means the document currently bearing the shelfmark T-S 13J24.11.

Ketubba fragment. Location: Fusṭāṭ. Dated: [..]45 (probably 1345 Seleucid = 1034 CE). Groom: Avraham ha-Levi. Bride: Durra bt. Shelomo, a virgin and a rich woman. Her trousseau contains a Qarqūbī canopy worth 100 dinars and other precious Tustari, Tabaristan, and Byzantine beddings. Witnessed by [...] b. Mevorakh (מברך), Khalaf b. Seʿadya, Nissim b. Maymūn, Yefet b. Ṭoviyya ha-Levi, Ezra b. Hillel ha-Kohen. (Information from CUDL and Goitein's index card.)

Ketubba, Qaraite. Groom: Marzūq b. Yefet. Bride: (Sitt al-)Furs bt. Simḥa. Location: Fustat. Dated: [13]75 Seleucid, which is 1063/64 CE. Ḥananya b. Elnatan (Abū l-Tāhir Ibn al-Qatmānī) is the bride's representative. The couple undertake to accept the calendar fixed every year according to the state of the crops in Palestine. The husband promises not to dispose of any part of the marriage portion without the knowledge and consent of his wife. Witnessed by Avraham b. Yosef b. ʿAnan ha-Levi, ʿAllān b. Nahum, Elʿazar b. Shemuel b. Sahl the Slave, [...] b. Efrayim, Saʿīd b. Raziʾel, Ṣedaqa b. Menashshe, Saul b. Abraham. On verso a colophon refers to the tractates Nidda and Beraḵot. (Information from CUDL and Goitein's index card.)

Deed of a gift or gifts, willed by an old man to be collected after his death. Dated: 1122 CE. The testator is the Tripolitan Elʿazar/Manṣūr b. Shelomo/Salāma. Names mentioned: Ṣedaqa b. ʿEli, Mawhūb al-Dhahabī, Abū ʿImrān ha-Parnas Ibn Majjān, Abū l-Munā b. Raḥma, Abū l-Faraj al-Sibāḡ, Abū ʿImrān ha-Kohen, Najā al-Qaṣṣab, and אלכצאבי. Signed by Avraham b. Shemaʿya he-Ḥaver, Yiṣḥaq b. Shemuel the Spaniard, Netanel b. Aharon ha-Levi, and Ḥalfon b. Menashshe ha-Levi, who also wrote the document. (Information from CUDL.)

Part of a ketubba. Bride: Sitt al-Maʿālī bt. Ḥesed, a divorcee. Groom:Daniel b. Ṭahōr. Date not preserved, but probably early 12th century. Rich trousseau. The total of marriage payments and dowry is over 200 dinars. Witnessed by Yiṣḥaq b. Simḥa ha-Levi al-ʿAsāb, Yeḥezqel b. ʿEli ha-Kohen (Ezekiel ha-Kohen 'the Ḥaver in the Great Sanhedrin' b. Eli ha-Kohen he-Ḥaver), [...] b. Natan, [...] b. Hillel, Moshe b. ʿAmram, Yiṣḥaq b. [Ghā]lib the Cantor. (Information from CUDL and Goitein's index card.)

Ketubba fragment. Very elaborately decorated with colorful patterns and micrography. The handwriting is probably that of Yosef b. Shemuel b. Seʿadya ha-Levi (ca. 1181–1209). Location: Fustat. Dated "Tuesday 10th" (amended supralinearly to Wednesday 11th); the rest of the date is lost. Bride: Khibāʾ, a virgin. Groom: [...] b. Levi ha-Levi he-Ḥaver the cantor (possibly Yedutun or Moshe, the sons of the well-known cantor Abū Sahl Levi from this time period). See Goitein's index cards for further information. (Information in part from CUDL.)

Power of attorney from Yisrael b. Yosef Januni to Nahray b. Nissim to collect the debt owed by Menashshe b. David, Qayrawan, ca. 1055 CE. (Information from CUDL)

Mostly destroyed fragment of power of attorney given to Yaʿaqov ha-Sar b. Moshe to represent the daughters of the late Avraham b. Shelomo in connection with the deceased's estate. (Information from Goitein's index cards)

Ketubba fragment. Location: Fustat. Dated: 13[..] Seleucid, corresponding to the range 988–1088 CE. Groom: ʿEli. Bride: Malka/Milka/Malika, a widow or divorcee. Marriage payments: 5 + 10 = 15. Her dowry amounts to 795 dinars. (Information from CUDL and Goitein's index cards.)

Legal document. Record of release. Written in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Location: Fustat. Dated: Adar I, 1426 Seleucid. One of two copies of a signed and executed mutual release of the partners Abū l-Karam Nadiv b. Saʿadya ha-Levi and Abū l-Surūr Peraḥya b. Benyamin from their long distance trading partnership. Both partners traveled to Yemen and traded in fabrics and and manufactured commodities. The partners use a number of terms to describe their complicated partnership relationships: khulṭa, shirka, and muḍāraba (commenda). There were also outside investors in their partnership, suggesting that Nadiv and Peraḥya were joint active partners employing this outside capital (as such the other partners are not mentioned in the release). The details of their relationship had been specified in a detailed agreement (kalimnā) which may or may not have been oral [NB: the document actually says "kull minnā," "each of us," which is not a reference to a prior detailed agreement]; this document represents only the termination of their joint relationship. Each party had to settle his account with his outside investors independently, in contrast to the corporate model seen elsewhere. (Information in part from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture," 152)

State document in Arabic script, an internal memorandum or report containing multiple hands. Containing (on the last fragment) the signature of the vizier Ḥusayn b. Muḥammad (441 AH/1049–50 CE). The dating is discussed in Stern's article and should be considered definite; it is also corroborated by the caliph's name. The Arabic text is written in five different hands, reflecting administrative procedure. NB: This is a continuous join: T-S Ar.18(2).193 + T-S Ar.30.306 + T-S Ar.30.314. Whether T-S 24.21 and ENA NS 10.31 also join is less clear: they were reused by the same scribe for the same text, but may not have been part of the same state document. If they were, the first two fragments don't join continuously with the last three. Between the lines on recto is a Judaeo-Arabic letter (see separate record, PGPID 16773). On verso is Shemuʾel b. Ḥofni's Kitāb Aḥkām al-Shurūṭ, parallel to the text in SP RNL Evr-Arab. I 2938 fol. 3b. (Information from CUDL and Marina Rustow.) Joins: Marina Rustow.

Mercantile accounts. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: Likely 11th century. Mentions al-Ramla three times. Mentions Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Jābir and his two partners. Mentions silk. (Information from Goitein's index card.)

Recto: a rhyming letter (in ‫-‬יה), each verse ending marked with sof pasuq. It opens מגמת הכתב הזה אדוני. In black ink. Verso: Leviticus 23 in a crude hand, brown ink, unvocalised. The Bible text continues on recto, at the bottom of the leaf in six lines, upside-down in relation to the letter. (Information from CUDL)

Recto: part of a deed of release (אביזר), granted by ʿEli b. Ḥusayn b. Moshe the Maghrebi, to his brother Azhar b. Ḥusayn b. Moshe the Maghrebi. Witnessed by about 20 people: Shemuel b. Mevasser b. Shemuel b. [...], ʿEli b. Nissim b. Aharon ha-Kohen, Ḥusayn b. Harūn b. [...], ʿAyyāsh b. Asad, Yaḥyā b. ʿImrān b. Mūs[ā] ha-Levi, ʿEli b. [...], Mevasser b. Moshe b. ʿEzra, Raḥami[m] b. Saʿīd, Ibrahīm b. Mūsā Qardūsī, Nahum b. Ṣadoq, Mevasser b. Nahum, Nahum b. Yisrael, ʿEli b. Shemuel, ʿEli b. Ḥarbish, Yiṣḥaq b. Avraham al-Ḥazām, Avraham b. Hillel b. Avraham, ʿEzra b. Yiṣḥaq. Attested in the court of ʿAzarya b. Moshe b. ʿAzarya the Exilarch. Verso: the name Natan b. Shelomo, on the edge of the verso; perhaps the owner of the book for which this document was subsequently used as a cover. (Information from CUDL.)

Verso: Letter in which a merchant returning, it seems from overseas, and embarking on another prolonged journey, lists 27 assets totaling 460 dinars regarding which action had to be taken. He also mentions debts due him from both Jews and Muslims. The assets were rents of houses, stores and a workshop as well as loans, balances from commercial ventures and income from a partnership in a sugar mill. Dated 1165. (Information from Mediterranean Society, I, p. 263) Recto: Bill of release in Sunbat (Egypt) in 1149, under the jurisdiction of Samuel ha-Nagid. (Information from CUDL)

Letter from Maṣliaḥ Gaon (autograph) to a communal leader or judge Avraham, in Malīj. In Judaeo-Arabic. Wide space between the lines. Dated: Shevaṭ 1442 Seleucid, which is 1131 CE. He has enclosed with this letter a debt contract (sheṭar ḥov). Yaʿaqov ha-Levi b. Shela owes money to Seʿadya b. Avraham; the latter has appointed Ṭāhir al-Ḍāmin b. Mufaḍḍal as his agent. Since the witnesses are in Malīj, the addressee is requested to settle the matter so that Seʿadya does not return again and complain to Maṣliaḥ (חתי לא יעוד מסתגית לשער הישיבה). (Information from Goitein's index card.)

Letter of appeal written by Menashshe, the Alexandrian school teacher, to Abu al-Barakat Yehudah ha-Kohen b. Elazar, Thiqat al-Mulk (Goitein translates 'Trusted Servant of the State'), a high ranking official in the Fatimid court. The letter was written in the seventies of the twelfth century, at the end of Fatimid rule in Egypt. The bulk of the letter is a poem of praise to Yehuda b. Elazar. The request for help is written on the occasion to the pilgrimage of Passover because the writer recently got married and suffers 'the burden of a house' (Information from Frenkel. See also Goitein, Med. Soc. 3:440).

Najiya, called Sitt Hidhq, releases her husband from all obligations and resulting from her marriage contract, and releases both him and his son from the repayment of loans given to them in return for what, is not said. Dated Ayyar 1416/ May 1105. (Information from Mediterranean Society, III, pp. 181, 465)

Recto: Letter from the two congregations of Alexandria (No-Amon), led by the judge Yosef b. Shelomo ha-Kohen, to the Jerusalemite congregation in Fustāt, led by Efrayim b. Shemarya. Dating: ca. 1031 CE. Requesting urgent financial assistance for the ransoming of Byzantine Jews taken captive by pirates. The letter mentions the visit of the Gaʾon's son, Avraham b. Shelomo, and refers to Barqa (Cyrenaica, on the Libyan coast), the teacher Yehuda b. Yiṣḥaq, and Yehuda b. Ḥayyān. Verso contains the address, written in rhymed prose and closing with an 'alāma, ברית שלום. (Information from CUDL.)