Geniza Lab

Recto: End of a legal document. Location: Fustat. Dated: Iyyar 1451 Seleucid, which is 1140 CE. Written and signed by Natan b. Shemuel. Also signed by Shela b. Binyamin.

Verso, with the address on recto: Letter in Arabic script. Dating: ca. 1140 CE, based on the date of the earlier document sharing this fragment. The layout of the address is quite confusing: to Alexandria, to Sūq al-ʿAṭṭārīn, to the shop of Abū [...], to be given to Abū l-Khayr b. Ibrāhīm al-Amshāṭī al-Miṣrī. But then it says "ʿAṭiyya b. Bunyām from his brother Abū ʿAlī." Mentions: 17 dinars, "his brother Abū Saʿīd," Abū ʿAlī, depositing something with Abū Naṣr. The sender excuses his delay by saying that the price of something was still with the wakīl. (Information in part from CUDL)

Petition from the Jewish physician Sulaymān b. Mūsā. In Arabic script. He reports that he "was raised among the physicians of the hospital (māristān) in Old Cairo, and he is one of the sons of the physicians who are employed there, and he has attended. . . .” The continuation is missing. He is presumably leading up to a request that he be formally employed at the hospital himself. On verso there is part of a medical notebook dealing with ophthalmology. Recto contains a list of simples used for curing eye complaints and follows roughly the list found in ʿAlī ibn ʿĪsā, Tadhkirat al-kaḥḥālīn (ed. Hyderabad 1964, p. 347). Simples mentioned include antimony, sarcocolla, ceruse, acacia, lichen, gum of sal ammoniac, myrtle, melitot, galbanum, onions, borax, lettuce seeds, zinc oxide, and egg white. (Information in part from CUDL.)

Legal query to a Muslim jurisconsult regarding certain houses that have been made pious foundations by Jewish people and that should preserve their status until it is changed by the head of the community. Dating: ca. 12th–13th century. (Information from Khan and CUDL)

Recto: fragment from a Karaite ketubba for Ghāliyya bt. Yosef b. Abraham and Thābit b. Yaʿaqov. The bride’s father acts as her agent. Dating: ca. 11th century. Verso: unidentified text. (Information from CUDL.) See also Goitein's note card.

Recto: fragment from a Karaite ketubba for Ḡāliyya bat Joseph b. Abraham and Ṯābit b. Jacob. The bride’s father acts as her agent. Ca. 11th century. Verso: unidentified text. (Information from CUDL)

Letter describing two meetings with physicians. At least part of the letter is addressed to the sender's mother. The first meeting was a visit to Maimonides, who discussed medical topics with the writer, who intends to being a course of study in medicine as soon he sorts out an issue with his brother and maternal aunt. The second was with another physician who visited the writer, checked his pulse, examined a flask of his urine, and prescribed barley water (kashk shaʿīr). Mention is made of a trip to Alexandria. The fragment mentions others and their wealth and very large debts: Abū Manṣūr, Abū l-Maḥāsin, Rīḍā al-Dawla, Ibn Hillel. It also mentions several distinguished physicians apart from Maimonides. (Information in part from CUDL)

Letter in Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: Perhaps 13th or 14th century, but this is a guess. Mentions numerous amirs (including Shams al-Dīn, Saʿd al-Dīn, and Fakhr al-Dīn), qāḍīs, a wālī, and a nāẓir. It seems to involve a matter of rural produce, possibly tax farming, and legal claims. Someone threatens to expose the writer and the wālī, and he retorts, “Even if you went down and the angels (peace be upon them) went down with you, you couldn’t prove a thing against us.” Join: Alan Elbaum. (Information in part from CUDL.)

Part of the heading for a highly decorated ketubba (in Hebrew, although the ketubba text would likely have been in Aramaic). All of the main text has been lost but the heading refers to Sar Shalom ha-Levi, leader of the Jewish community in 1170 and 1177-1195 CE (brother of Gaʾon Nathaniel ha-Levi). (Information from CUDL)

Legal testimony. In Arabic script. The witnesses have examined (bāsharū) the Jew Ibrāhīm b. Abū l-ʿAlāʾ, and found that he had developed leprosy (judhām) on account of a black humor (al-khilṭ al-sawdāwī) and is therefore banned from moving freely and conducting business among Muslims. Witnessed by Aḥmad b. Abū l-Ḥasan and Abū l-Ṭāhir b. Abū l-Ḥasan. Dated: First decade of Rabīʿ II 660 AH, which is February 1262 CE. (Information from Khan's edition.)

Letter from ʿAmmār b. [...] to al-Rayyis Bū l-Faḍl, a court official. In Arabic script. The writer reports on a particular course of treatment for eye problems that included inflammations, dimness of vision, expanded pupils. The illness was treated with lamellae, eye drops and with the prescription of a potion to be taken after breakfast. Simples mentioned include anise, rose, lavender, oregano, mastic, liquorice, myrobalan, and aloe. The writer mentions his recent move to the town of Qalyūb. (Information from CUDL, probably from Isaacs's catalogue.)

Recto: calendrical work explaining the principles of calendar reckoning. Verso: petition in Arabic. The remains of three lines of the calendrical work copied on recto are found on verso, written between the lines of the Arabic petition. (Information from CUDL)

Calendrical calculations, mentioning dates of the creation of the world, and of the creation of Adam. The beginning of a letter in Judaeo-Arabic is found in the margins of the verso, copied in a different hand and written inverted in relation to the main text. The letter mentions Abū l-Faraj b. Abū ʿImrān(?) Sulaymān b. Abū Manṣūr. Verso also contains pen trials in Hebrew and Arabic characters. (Information from CUDL)

Recto: calendrical work in Judaeo-Arabic explaining the rules of calendar reckoning. Verso: letter in Judaeo-Arabic with introductory rhymed praises in Hebrew. (Information from CUDL)

Maimonides’ Mishne Tora, Qiddush ha-Ḥodesh 10:5. (Information from CUDL)

Calendrical information for the 19-year cycle 259 (beginning in 1142 CE) and 261 (beginning in 1180 CE). Jottings in Hebrew and Arabic script. Jottings in Arabic include a date copied several times, 1419 (= 1096-7 CE) or 1417 (1094-5 CE). (Information from CUDL)

Calendrical calculations and jottings in Arabic. (Information from CUDL)

List of property rentals, with amounts due to the property owner. Written in the first person, possibly in the hand of Yefet b. David. (Information from CUDL)

Legal document. In the hand of Natan b. Shemuel or Natan b. Shelomo? Dated: 1456 Seleucid, which is 1144/45 CE, under the authority of the Nagid Shemuel b. Ḥananya. Involves: Abū l-Barakāt; a small house (duwayra) in Qaṣr al-Shamʿ in Fustat; Abū l-Makārim. (Information in part from CUDL.) Join: Oded Zinger. Needs further examination.

Colophon in the handwriting of Evyatar b. Eliyyahu Gaon b. Shelomo Gaon b. Yosef ha-Kohen Av Bet Din. Evyatar was titled "the fourth" (ha-reviʿi) at the time he wrote this. Location: Fustat. Dated: 1 Av 4827 AM, which is 1067 CE. The book contains the commentary on Ḥagiga by Hayya b. Sherira Gaon, as well as Sefer ha-Dinin of the late Rabbenu Ḥananel (who was still alive in 1053 CE, fourteen years before this colophon was written) and kinnushim(?) and legal queries. There is an elaborate blessing for anyone who returns the book and a curse for anyone who does not. (Information from Gil.)