Geniza Lab

Recto: letter by a certain Shelomo to his father Yeshuʿa, also mentioning ‘the brother’ Jacob ha-Talmid and the arrival of the addressee’s brother in law in Fusṭāṭ. (Information from CUDL)

Probably a legal document, mentioning the bridal gift and Ḥalfon b. Shelomo. (Information from CUDL)

Probably a letter, mentioning four ships. (Information from CUDL)

Letter. (Information from CUDL)

Notes, including list of commodities and their quantities, mentioning names including Abū l-Faraj, Ibn Ḥumayd, Abu ʿUṯmān and Joseph, and the emir and the sultan; with Hebrew numerals. (Information from CUDL)

Accounts. (Information from CUDL)

Letter, written around an Arabic text, probably also a letter. (Information from CUDL)

Letter to a judge (shofeṭ), apparently in Damīra, mentioning Abū l-M[...] b. Abū l-[...] (the addressee?). (Information from CUDL)

Letter from Yefet b. Menashshe probably to his brother Abū l-Surūr Peraḥya b. Menashshe. In Judaeo-Arabic. (We know the addressee has to be Peraḥya, because Yefet talks about their brother Abū Saʿīd Ḥalfon in the third person.) Yefet complains about his isolation and urges the addressee(s) to come quickly. He reports that the mummy (אלמומיא) has sold for 6 dinars and 45 dirhams. The term mūmiyāʾ referred to three different medicinal substances in this period—bitumen, pissasphalt, and a substance extracted from mummified corpses—and it is hard to know which of these is most likely in this letter. (For a review of the evolving meanings of mumiyāʾ, see Karl Dannenfeldt, "Egyptian Mumia: The Sixteenth Century Experience and Debate," The Sixteenth Century Journal 16 no. 2 (1985), 163–80.) Yefet has spoken to Ibn Salma and to Efrayim about something. There follows advice or exhortations about travel, but these are tricky to understand (". . . if you wanted to travel every two months, you would, and others are not cleverer(?) than you. Rent from Fustat to Alexandria. . . the time of the departure of the ships, may God guide them. . . ." Greetings to Ḥalfon and "those with him" (man ʿindahū). Greetings from their mother and sisters. It seems the letter initially ended here. Yefet continues with a reminder for Ḥalfon to obtain a letter or document from the judge "concerning the thing I asked him about." Yefet wants the addressee to bring tutty and other medicinal ingredients, since they have been prescribed for his eyes and they tell him that nothing else will work. Greetings to Sitt Naʿīm and to Ibrāhīm (who should come together with the addressee). Joins: Oded Zinger. ASE

Letter in the hand of Yefet b. Menashshe. Small fragment (upper right corner of recto). Very faded. (Information from CUDL)

Recto: draft of a responsum. Verso: drafts or jottings, mentioning quantities. (Information from CUDL)

Draft of a legal document in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. (Information from CUDL)

Legal document mentioning Abū l-[...] and Sitt al-S[…], in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. (Information from CUDL)

Legal document concerning a divorce, mentioning Joseph ha-Levi, in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. (Information from CUDL)

Legal document mentioning two witnesses, in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. (Information from CUDL)

Legal document mentioning 60 dinars, in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. (Information from CUDL)

Legal deed: Betrothal agreement (draft), in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe, assuring the wife that she would have an apartment to herself, not to be shared with a concubine. (Information from CUDL)

Order of payment to Abū l-Munā for lemons, quinces, roses, jam and apples. (Information from CUDL)

Legal document, probably in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. (Information from CUDL)

Legal document in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. (Information from CUDL)