Geniza Lab

A very damaged legal document in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe ha-Levi (ca 1100–38 CE). Some details might be extracted with effort. In the margins of recto and on verso, in a different hand, there are accounts or possibly lists of names with numbers, written in a different hand. Probably unrelated to the legal document on recto, but this is not certain. AA. ASE.

Judaeo-Arabic poetry in the hand of Nāṣir al-Adīb al-ʿIbrī. This is one of the fragments that he signs (נאצר אנא האדא שגלי קד צגת מענ . . בעקלי . וזן מן גנא . לי ואסמעת אן . . . ). There may be a reference to his rivals falling mute when they try to speak.

Official correspondence (petition or report). Refers to the Dīwān of Syria (cf. T-S AS 111.37). The beginnings of two lines are preserved: "al-mutaqaddim(?) min jihat mawlāy... ilā dīwān al-shām...." Reused for Hebrew piyyuṭ.

Prognostications in Judaeo-Arabic. Numbered.

Letter in Hebrew. Crossed out with vertical strokes. Possibly also containing accounts. Late. "And also tell them. . . between you and her, because she has only 20 peraḥim."

Page from a medical treatise in Hebrew and Ladino.

Calendar manual with distinctive Palestinian calendar traditions, such as the rule of 641–642. Defers to Babylonian calendar rules, in a way that is inconsistent and calendrically impossible. The outcome is a flawed manual that could never have been used. This text confirms that Palestinian calendar rules were preserved for well over a century after the controversy of 921/2. It also provides us, for the first time ever, with explicit evidence of a different version of the Four Gates, based on the month of Nisan. The manuscript can be dated by its script to the late eleventh or early twelfth centuries.93 The text begins on the first folio, and appears to finish at the bottom of the second; thus the manual appears to be preserved completely.

Letter fragment (vertical strip from the left side of recto). In Hebrew. Dating: Late, perhaps ca. 16th century. Regarding communal matters and evildoers.

Book list. (Information from Goitein’s index card)

State or private petition in Arabic script. Fragmentary. Uses the terms murā`ī and mamālīk.

Poetry copied in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Netanel ha-Levi, including a previously unknown poem by Yehuda ha-Levi. Discovered by Amir Ashur and Shulamit Elizur; see https://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/genizah-fragments/posts/qa-wednesday-amir-ashur-finding-lost-poem-judah-ha-levi.

Hebrew poetry.

Letter in Hebrew. Preserving copious praises for the addressee.

The end of one line from a state document in Arabic script (decree vs. petition vs. report). Quite faded. Reused for Hebrew piyyuṭ.

Document in Arabic script. Possibly the upper left corner of a letter from Abū Saʿd. The phrases "arjū an" and "ṣaḥīḥ" appear.

Document in Arabic script (VMR). Reused for a Hebrew literary text.

Literary? In Hebrew. There is the format of a letter with the header "for a baʿal teshuva."

Letter. Small strip of paper, from a letter, probably by the hand of Bundār b. Ḥasan (see India Book, II12, AIU VII E35). Only little text remains. Judeo-Arabic. AA

Document in Arabic script (VMR). Small fragment only.

Accounts in Judaeo-Arabic.