Geniza Lab

Legal document. In the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. On parchment. Fragment (long vertical strip from the left side). An elaborate deed of release (שטר אביזאריה), involving [...] b. Ṭoviyya ha-Levi and Shemuel ha-Levi (these might be the same person). (Information in part from CUDL)

The nature of this fragment is unknown. Could be literary text or part of a letter. AA

Accounts, mentioning names such as Abū l-Faraj Mardūk and Abū Isḥāq, and several sums of money. (Information from CUDL)

Opening of a letter. On verso a drawing. AA

Note or possibly informally written legal document, containing instructions concerning inheritance. Mentions the wife of Abū ʿAlī b. Daʾūd the perfumer, [...] b. Saʿīd, Abū Ṯanā and Egyptian dinars. (Information from CUDL)

Family letter, mentioning the addressee’s brothers and mother. (Information from CUDL)

Two documents in the hand of Natan b. Shemuel he-Ḥaver concerning houses. 1) Awaiting description. 2) The wife of Abū l-Faḍl Ibn al-Basri empowers her husband to sell one fourth of a house and to rent the rest belonging to him to Faraj/Yeshua known as Katāʾib b. Moshe Ibn Ḥashīsh. The husband's maternal uncle the banker Sayyid al-Ahl Netanʾel b. Saʿadya stands security. (Information from Goitein's index cards)

Letter in Judaeo-Arabic. Mentions numerous items of clothing and textiles. Written during an epidemic (wa-l-zamān zamān maraḍ, 3 lines from the bottom of recto). The sender’s brother is in Maḥalla, and he is rumored to be sick. The sender mentions greetings from and to Abū l-Ḥasan, Natan and Shemuel al-Baghdādī, and asks for things to be sent either with the carrier of the letter or with ‘the rayyis’, whoever travels first. (Information in part from CUDL)

Legal document mentioning the elder Abū Zikrī Kohen, and the synagogue and inheritance issues. (Information from CUDL)

Letter mentioning many names such as Abū l-ʿAzz, Ibn Abū l-Ḡīya (?), the elder Mūsā, Judah, Sulaymān al-Kohen (?) al-Ṣayrafī, Abū Naṣr b. Sālim, the elder Hārūn and Abū l-ʿAlā, and commodities such as amomum (qāqulla). (Information from CUDL)

Accounts and lists, mentioning prices, weights, currency, place names such as Būṣīr and names such as Ṣalaḥ. Hebrew numerals. Arabic jottings on f. 1r. (Information from CUDL)

List of names and accounts, such as Raḥamīm Maḡribī, Khiḍr Barakāt and al-Ḥaver Khiḍr Kohen, followed by Coptic numerals or ‘a raṭl of olive oil’. (Information from CUDL)

List of names, such as Abū l-Ḥusayn, Shemaʿya, Abū Joseph and Ibn Isḥāq. (Information from CUDL)

Verso: Legal document in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Small fragment from the right side of a marriage contract. (Information in part from CUDL.)

Recto: Beginning of a deed of acknowledgment (iqrār). In Arabic script. The muqirr seems to be called al-Sharīf al-Mahdawī (i.e., from al-Mahdiyya), and his name is followed by blessings for longevity. Nothing else is preserved beyond the basmala and the first few words.

Small fragment of a document in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. There is a first-person declaration, mentioning "this sum" and "unemployment."

Beginning of a very old (10th-century?) court document in Hebrew, describing a woman with an unusual name— פליטי bt. [...] known as קפנו—who appears before the court crying and complaining. (Information from Goitein's index cards)

Letter in the hand of Yefet b. Menashshe probably to Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. In Judaeo-Arabic. Mentions Binyām al-Rashīdī. Greetings to Sitt Naʿīm and to Abū l-Surūr (probably their brother Peraḥya). The addressee should encourage someone (probably Abū l-Surūr) to come down with Baqāʾ, because there is still employment to be had in the castle. At the end: "The letters which arrive from [...] Ḥārat Zuwayla, please forward them to their owners." (Information in part from CUDL)

Formal petition in Judaeo-Arabic from a group of "poor" people to a notable titled Peʾer ha-Qahal, ‘the crown of the congregation.’ Header: Psalms 41:2. Mentions idolatry. (Information in part from CUDL)

Recto: expenses accounts with Coptic numerals. Mentions several books such as Dīwān al-Muʿaẓẓamī, Dīwān al-Jahmī and Dīwān al-Ṣārim. Verso: legal document, mentioning Joseph and his mother, the name Elʿazar and a ketubba. (Information from CUDL)