Geniza Lab

Recto/verso: recto and verso

Payroll [similar to T-S K15.9] in the hand of Shelomo b. Eliyyahu, for the seventh and eighth weeks of the liturgical calendar. Mostly same names and sums as that list. The entries for the eighth week are in Arabic script. Some payments of arrears from the sixth week are also noted. This is a full report. The numerals are not defined. In the first 15 lines they represent dirhams, in the remaining 20, loaves of bread. Another difficulty: Here, bread costs 32 dirhams (and the distribution is 126 pounds = loaves); elsewhere, about 10 pounds cost about 1 dirham (150 pounds of bread cost 15 d. in App. B 42 and 13 1/3 in App. B 47). Goitein's solution: 'There still were two distributions every week, on Tuesdays and Fridays, as had been the practice a hundred and more years before. Our list notes the number of loaves allocated to each household for one distribution (habitual in all lists of the poor), but registers the total spent on bread during one week (by the distributor concerned). The comparatively rare occurrence of the item '2 loaves for one person' catches the eye, especially if compared with the lists from the early eleventh and twelfth centuries.' (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, pp. 450-451, App. B 41 [dated 1210-1225])