Geniza Lab

Letter with greetings for the holidays, likely in the hand of the clerk of Yehoshua Maimonides. There appears to be a genealogy in a different hand occupying the top of the page. Needs further examination. ASE.

Bifolium from a court ledger. The dates range from Adar II through Sivan of 1410 Seleucid, which is 1099 CE. At least one is in the hand of Hillel b. ʿEli, with his signature. Needs much more examination.

Letter from Barakat, in the countryside, to his elder brother in the city, with the request, “Please buy me two pounds of beef, which should be yellow, dry, and good. If you can’t get it, don’t buy any. Your welfare [may increase].” (S. D. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 4:249, 443) EMS

Court record of a divorce settlement initiated by Haskana bat R. Yiṣḥaq against her husband Perahya. (F. Niessen and A. Shivtiel, ed., Arabic and Judaeo-Arabic Manuscripts in the Cambridge Genizah Collections, 613) EMS

Awaiting description - see Goitein notes linked below.

Betrothal contract between Sitt al-Ahl bt. Yosef Lebdī and Abū l-Surūr Peraḥya ha-Levi b. Binyamin/Binyām. In the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Location: Fustat. Dated: 10 June 1124 CE.

Contract in which a scholar known from a number of dated manuscripts gives sums of money to his two daughters. The money is destined for their trousseaus when they reach maturity, but will in the meantime be supervised by a merchant in the form of a partnership to which the merchant himself contributes a small sum. The capital is ensured as a 'deposit of the court,' for which the highest possible form of security had to be given. Dated to the last third of the 11th century. (S. D. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 1:175-176, 442.) Previous description: "List of trousseau received from Ezra ha-Kohen b. Abraham by his bride Khiba bat Hillel. The groom agrees to pay his late marriage gift in dinars "of the worst sort". (Information from Mediterranean Society, III, pp. 254, 482)"

Verso: Note in Judaeo-Arabic. The sender wishes to borrow the addressee’s riding animal (dābba) for transporting "some of my stuff" (baʿḍ qumāshī). He should send the animal with Ḥayyūn the carpenter or whomever is available. (Niessen and Shivtiel understood this to refer to a trousseau, which seems speculative.) EMS. ASE.

Recto: Account in Arabic script, surrounded by other jottings.

Letter from Moshe b. Yaʿaqov al-Miṣrī, in Damascus, to Yūsuf b. Dā'ūd b. Shaʿya, in Fustat. Dated: 19 January 1055 CE. Concerning financial transactions. Moshe received 25 dinars and two qirats from Abū Manṣūr Dā'ūd b. Sulaymān. The money has to be returned in Fustat to Abū l-Faḍl by way of loan from Abū Naṣr Salmon b. ʿEli b. Salmon. Moshe also asks Yūsuf to write a letter to the Qāḍī, probably the qāḍī of Tyre, Abū Muḥammad b. Abī ʿAqīl, concerning the shipping of merchandise. Confirmation of receipt dated Sunday, 10 Dhū l-Ḥijja 446 AH, which is 12 March 1055 CE. Information in part from Aodeh; Shivtiel/Nissen; Gil, Palestine, vol. 3, summary of this document listed under doc. #515. EMS. ASE.

Letter concerning a trousseau list. (F. Niessen and A. Shivtiel, ed., Arabic and Judaeo-Arabic Manuscripts in the Cambridge Genizah Collections, 614) EMS

Document in the hand of the judge Natan b. Shemuel concerning Zikri b. Ḥalfon, who received 50 dinars from funds belonging to two orphan girls, to be kept by him until they were ready to be betrothed. He had to mortgage his apartment and the share of a house that he owned as collateral before the court. (S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 3:297, 493) EMS

Legal document from al-Mahalla mentioning ha-zaqen b. R. Pinhas. (F. Niessen and A. Shivtiel, ed., Arabic and Judaeo-Arabic Manuscripts in the Cambridge Genizah Collections, 614) EMS

Accounts in Judaeo-Arabic.

Digests of legal documents. In the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe? Document #1: Manṣūr/Elʿazar b. M[...] sells 1/8 of a house for 14 dinars. Specifies the amount of the ḥikr (ground rent, see Med Soc IV, p. 37). Document #2: Conditions for the betrothal (erusin/qiddushin) of Ḥalfon b. Elʿazar. The fiancee's name may be Turfa, but not enough is preserved to be certain.

Report of the death of a Jewish woman. In Arabic script. The deceased was an adult (kāmil) woman Ḥusn bt. Mūsā, and she was survived by her three sons and heirs, Futūḥ, Ibrāhīm and Makīn. Dated: Thursday, 23 Rabīʿ II 655 AH, which is 10 May 1257 CE.

Recto: Decree from the 1130s. Only the closing boilerplate and a date (without the year) have survived. Reused by the India trader Abū ʿAlī Yeḥezqel b. Netanel in Qalyūb for a letter to his brother Ḥalfon in Alexandria. Join: A. Ashur and M. A. Friedman.

Business accounts, probably. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: 11th or 12th century. Written out in full sentences. Possibly written up for the sake of a legal case? In any case, this document summarizes the commercial activities of a certain Yosef. Mentions places such as Tyre and Alexandria. Mentions goods such as copper/brass, crimson, silk, and kohl(?).

Bottom of a legal document. No details preserved. Location: Fustat. Dating: 1140–59 CE, under the authority of the Nagid Shemuel b. Ḥananya. Signed by: Yosef b. Iyov / Yūsuf b. Ayyūb ha-Levi (perhaps the same as in AIU VII.A.38, fol. 1, fragment b); and ʿAzaryahu b. Efrayim (perhaps the distinguished physician known from documents such as CUL Add.3342 + T-S 8J19.8).

Bill of lading for the brothers Barhun and Nissim Tahirti. (S. D. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 5:336, 599) EMS