Geniza Lab

Marriage contract (ketubba). Fragment (lower right corner). Written and signed by Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Groom: Shemuel b. Yosef. Bride: Naẓar, not a virgin. The marriage payments plus dowry add up to 20 (or 20-something) dinars. Also signed by Natan ha-Kohen.

Letter requesting aid for the poor of Palestine, 11th century. Recto: Fully vocalised poetry in a very crude (almost unreadable) hand. (Information from CUDL)

Legal document in the hand of Natan b. Shemuel. Dated: Nisan 1456 Seleucid, which is 1145 CE. Abū l-Ḥajjāj Yosef b. Elʿazar (Rabbenu Elʿazar ha-Rav ha-Gadol Resh bē Rabbanan) confirms that his mother (no name of her or her father), the wife of the late Elʿazar, had given the female slave (waṣīfa) named Dhahab, who was three years old, to her brother Abū l-Ḥasan Yahaboy, and that he and the other heir had no claim on her. Signed by Natan b. Shemuel, Yiṣḥaq b. Moshe, and Yosef b. Iyov/Ayyūb ha-Levi. Validated by Ḥiyyā b. Yiṣḥaq and Natan b. Shelomo ha-Kohen. (Information from Goitein's index card.)

Marriage contract (ketubba). In the hand of Yosef b. Shemuel b. Seʿadya. Cut into an unusual octopus-like shape: a comb spine lining? Cf. T-S NS 305.206, T-S NS 297.103–06, and https://blogs.lib.ku.edu/spencer/manuscript-of-the-month-manuscript-waste-not-or-a-case-in-fragmentology/. (Information in part from Goitein's index card.)

Letter from Toviyya b. Eli ha-Kohen to his cousin Natan b. Shelomo ha-Kohen, seeking to mollify him, possibly for Toviyya's failure to reimburse him in a timely manner. "It will arrive next week. You know the vow I swore regarding the lamb (? al-khurayyif), and let this not be something that distresses you, for your magnanimity is greater than this, and it distresses me that it weighed upon your soul." He then mentions something Natan had had sent with Abū Ṣāliḥ on Hol ha-Moed. Toviyya sends his regards, as does his sister, and Abū l-Maʿālī and his mother.

Fragment of a ketubba, with menstrual purity conditions. The husband also accepts that he will not take a second wife. Dating: Probably late 12th or early 13th century.

Marriage contract (ketubba). The marriage gift at the conclusion of this marriage contract is five dinars and the payment required at the termination of the marriage is 30 dinars. Dated between 1205 and 1237, the period of Avraham Maimonides' tenure as head of the Jews. (Information from Goitein, Mediterranean Society, III, 400.) NB: In Letters from Medieval Jewish Traders, Goitein mistakenly cites this shelfmark for the document T-S 12.114, which is a letter from a merchant from southern Italy.

Looks literary.

Letter from a Babylonian gaon. Edited in comparison with manuscript. (Top and bottom missing)

Karaite document, compiled by a delegation of 12 Gaza and Jerusalem Karaites, regarding the state of fields in the spring in order to determine whether to intercalate the year, March 1052.

Legal document. Location: Fustat. Dating: Under the authority of Mevorakh (b. Seʿadya). Mentions: Syria (al-Shām); Abū Isḥāq... Avraham known as Ibn Baqara (seems to be the grandson of the one in Ibn ʿAwkal's time); and Yaʾir b. Elʿazar b. ʿUbays (l. 15). Concerning an affair of an orphan and 247 dinars (l. 18). In another hand: "his agent ʿUlla ha-Levi ha-Neʾeman." Several lines are crossed out, and there are interlinear and marginal additions. (Information from Goitein's index card.)

Compensation bill given by Alush b. Yeshua to Shemuel (Isma’il) b. Avraham al-Andalusi, July 24, 1011. The two Spanish merchants (Alush and Shemuel) arrived in Fustat and wrote the bill at the Fustat court (Beit Din). Shemuel ha-Shlishi (the third) b. Hosha’ana wrote and signed the bill. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 2, #213) VMR

Letter from an unknown merchant from Fustat to his partner Yahya in the Maghreb. Around 1050. The writer complains about his partner and his work in the Maghreb, al-Qayrawān, and Sicily. The writer writes instructions regarding shipment of flax and use of money. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 4, #813) VMR

Power of attorney. In Hebrew and Aramaic. On parchment. Unsigned. Location: Fustat. Dated: Monday, 26 Nisan 4765 AM = 1316 Seleucid = 9 April 1005 CE. An unnamed group of people tell Yosef b. Yazdād ha-Kohen and his son Mevorakh b. Yazdād to bear witness that they have appointed Yosef b. Mordekhay b. Shiblūn as their agent to sue Nissim b. Yiṣḥaq Ibn al-ʿĀbid for everything that he owes them. (Information from Goitein's index card.)

Ketubba fragment. In the hand of Hillel b. ʿEli? Few details preserved.

Beginning of a legal document dated 9 Tammuz 1602 Seleucid = 1291 CE, under the reshut of the Nagid David Maimonides and including a blessing for David's son Avraham.

Upper half of a long letter in Hebrew from the congregation of Jerusalem to Elḥanan b. Shemarya (d. ca.1025)

Marriage contract (ketubba) from Qugandima, Egypt, dated 945. The document records a marriage gift of only four dinars and is signed by eleven or twelve individuals, including the groom. (Friedman, Jewish Marriage, vol 2, 165-75) EMS

Legal document. David b. Shekhanya renews his ketubba with Mubāraka bt. Mawhūb whom he had married several years earlier. Mentions 35 dinars of which 25 were the delayed payment. Dated: Adar 1324 Seleucid, which is February/March 1013 CE. Cited at least twice in Mediterranean Society. (Information from Goitein's index card.)

Legal document in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Involving a complicated case of a house divided into shares. "What emerges from this fragment may be summarized as follows: Abū l-Surūr and his sister Nasab inherited 1/3 of a house from their late father in equal shares. 2/3 of this house had already belonged to Nasab. Abū l-Surūr claimed that his sister had taken possession of his share several years before and now he would like to receive what was due him. In a settlement, reached in a Muslim court and which was recorded in a document and testified to orally by Abu Saʿīd Ḥalfon and another witness, Nasab and her husband bought her brother's 1/6 for 35 dinars. It was agreed that 25 dinars would be paid at the end of three months, and for the remaining 10 dinars a written acknowledgement will be issued (1. 15). It seems that the buyers could not meet the obligation they took upon themselves, and after the intervention of elders seeking a peaceful settlement, 1t was agreed by the seller to defer the due date. No signatures are preserved." (Information from Weiss.)