Geniza Lab

Ketubba (marriage contract) fragment describing that one-third of a house is given to a daughter upon marriage, on the condition that it would become her property only after her mother’s death; the boundaries of the house are precisely delimited. The document begins with the clause detailing the sums of the marriage payment, and the trousseau list contains three types of skullcaps, a bed cover and four cushions, a pair of earrings and a gold pin, two garments with borders of another color, and a shawl, amongst other items. (Friedman, Jewish Marriage, vol. 2, 332-8) EMS

Trousseau list. In Judaeo-Arabic. Groom: Ḥalfon ha-Levi b. Shelomo. Bride: Khalīfa bt. Avraham. Dating: Probably no later than 1032 CE, because Ḥalfon's father is not marked as dead in this document, and there is a signature from a Ḥalfon ha-Levi b. Shelomo (ZL) in T-S 16.45 from 1032 CE. The total value of the trousseau amounts to 865 dinars. Goitein's note card suggests that some of the prices, especiallly of household goods, are exaggerated.

Deed of release in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. The daughter of (Shelomo) ha-Kohen ha-Zariz (see Bodl. MS heb. c 28/68) releases her ex-husband Abū ʿAlī Yefet from alimony for his daughter, and her father stands security for her in Jewish and Muslim courts and supplies his daughter with all her needs. Obviously she thought that because iṣṭilāḥ(?) was considered (l. 9), she was entitled to alimony. This means that she left him against his will. Dated: Written in the first decade of Nisan and signed the first decade of Iyyar 1341 of the Seleucid Era (= 1120 CE). Witnesses: Ḥalfon b. Ghālib the cantor; Ḥalfon b. Araḥ; Yosef b. Nuʿmān. Validation signed by Yiṣḥaq b. Shemuel ha-Sefaradi, ʿUlla b. Yosef ha-Levi, and Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. (Information from CUDL and Goitein's index card.)

Engagement (shiddukhin) and betrothal (qiddushin) contract. Location: Fustat. Dated: 10 Nisan 1554 Seleucid, which is 1243 CE. Groom: Yosef b. Avraham. Bride: Rivqa bt. Avraham ha-Parnas, virgin. The marriage proper (dukhūl) will take place in the upcoming Tishrei. Early marriage payment: 10 dinars ("with the well-known conditions concerning henna and strings &c."). Delayed marriage payment: 50 dinars. Witnesses: ʿImmanuel b. Yeḥiel; Yehuda ha-Kohen b. Yisrael. (Information in part from Goitein notes and index card linked below.)

List in Arabic script. Probably accounts.

Letter in Hebrew from the community of Kiev on behalf of Yaʿaqov ben R. Hanukkah. He had been seized by Christian creditors (goyim) of his brother, who had been killed by brigands. Yaʿaqov had stood surety for the loan. The community had redeemed him by paying part of the debt. Now, apparently, they had sent Yaʿaqov to collect as much of what remained of the debt as possible from Jewish communities. He had evidently ended up in Fustat. Dated to the 10th century (Information from Mediterranean Society, IV, p. 348 and from Golb and Pritsak)

Letter of Avraham b. Simhon, Ifrīqiya, to Yosef b. ʿAwkal. (A large hole from line 11 to line 22 has obliterated much of the letter.)

Trousseau list from the Egyptian town of al-Mahalla. Ca. 1155

Legal document. Partnership agreement. Dating: 1229. Location: Fustat. In a document written in Hebrew emerging from the court of Abraham Maimonides, Abū al-‘Alā b. Joseph and his father enter into a partnership with Mufaḍḍal in a sugar factory, splitting profits and losses evenly. Mufaḍḍal gave 50 dinars to "his Elder" (possibly his grandfather), which would act as capital to be used by the grandfather to purchase raw sugar; as well as an additional 50 dinars to his partners. The purpose of this document is to bring Mufaḍḍal into the relationship between Abū al-‘Alā and his father; no qinyan between the father and son is recorded here. Goitein points out that although the relationship is well-defined here, it may not have been canonized with a formal qinyan. The document may have been written for Mufaḍḍal and to record his investment (100 dinars) and the split of profits or losses due to him.The sole preserved signatory, the judge Yehiel b. Eliakim of Aleppo, is known to have signed other documents with Abraham Maimonides. (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture," 106)

Marriage contract mentioning in the dowry list, among other garments, a 'jukaniyya,' a garment covering body and head, made of 'white dabiqi'' and worth two dinars. Dated between 1184-1186. (Information from Ashtor, Prix et salaires, pp. 153, 155, 160)

Legal agreement from Fustat, written by the hand of Avraham b. Aharon Ha-Mumkhe.

Letter. The sender, a newcomer in Fustat from Yemen, describes himself as 'a pigeon whose wings have been clipped' (line 1), writes to his brother in Alexandria concerning his trouble having to live on a half or a quarter dirham a day, and also relating family news. "As for what you wished to know about Yūsuf. . . he now has many dependents, and his vision has weakened, and he has nothing." A palimpsest. (Information from Mediterranean Society, III, 478; IV, 443; V, 562)

Bottom of a ketubba. The groom is named Efrayim ha-Levi. Several witness signatures are preserved, including Menashshe(?) b. Seʿadya ha-Kohen, Yiṣḥaq b. Ghālib the cantor, Avraham b. Ḥalfon, and Avraham b. Aharon he-Ḥaver.

Ketubba fragment (upper left corner). Bride: Bahiyya bt. Yosef, a virgin. Early marriage payment: 20 dinars. Dating: ca. 1040 CE (per Goitein). There is a one-line header (superscription), as in (the documents of?) Yefet b. David. (Information from Goitein's index card.)

Beginning of a legal document dated 1213 CE, under the reshut of Avraham Maimonides, involving Abu Isḥāq b. Sayyid al-Ahl al-Miṣrī.

Letter from Mūsā b. Barhūn al-Tāhirtī and his brother Yiṣḥaq b. Barhūn, in Qayrawān, to the senior Tustari brothers (Abū l-Faḍl Sahl (Yashar), Abū Yaʿaqov Yosef, and Abū Sahl Saʿīd the sons of Yisraʾel), in Fustat. Dating: probably first decade of the 11th century. Written on parchment. Though the address lists all the brothers (the members of the respective family firms), the letter is principally from Mūsā al-Tāhirtī to Sahl al-Tustarī. The letter deals mainly with trade in expensive textiles, including some which the Tustaris had shipped for Abū Zikrī Yehuda b. Yosef, the leading Jewish merchant of Qayrawān (active 990s–1030s). (Information from Goitein, Letters of Medieval Jewish Traders, pp. 73–79.)

Fragment containing the lower section of a ketubba (marriage contract) beginning towards the end of the dowry list, which contains a chest and a case, a drinking cup and a water container. A gift to the bride includes an apartment in a compound known as Daniel the Perfumer. (Friedman, Jewish Marriage, vol. 2, 327-31) EMS

Marriage contract (ketubba). Fragment (lower left corner). Written and signed by Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Bride: Ḥasana bt. Shelomo. Groom: Avraham b. Simḥa. This portion preserves the formulae describing the husband's obligations toward his wife.

Fragment of a legal document (bottom only) signed by Ṣedaqa b. Avraham ha-Kohen.

Fragment of a legal document in which someone promises to pay his debt.