Geniza Lab

Part of a ketubba for Yefet b. Joseph (groom). (Information from CUDL)

4 fragments of a ketubah from 1107. The bride is Sitt al-Dar b. Yefet. The groom is Eli b. Yehezkel ha-Haver be-Sanhedrin Gedola. Contains also a dowry list. Signed by: Mevorakh b. Isaac, Isaac b. Ghalib, Efrayim b. Sasson, A[vraha]m b. Shabetay, Issac b. Shmuel, Elya b. Daniel, Israel b. Shlomo, Shemaryah Hakohen b. Natan, Yosef b. Isaac (his father name is only partly preserved), Halfo[n] b. Mevorakh (in a very crude hand with error in spelling חלפו בר מברך). AA

Part of a ketubba for [ ]שתדו (Sitt [...]) (bride). Only a few words are preserved. (Information from CUDL)

Part of a ketubba for [S]itt al-Sharaf (אלשרף). (Information from CUDL)

Part of a ketubba. No names are preserved. (Information from CUDL)

Marriage contract (ketubba). Location: Qūṣ. Bride: Sitt al-Gharb bt. Yehuda. See description for MS 8254, fol. 15 (PGPID 32292) for the whole story.

Part of a ketubba. The surviving text contains part of the dowry list. (Information from CUDL.) See T-S 12.600, a probable join

Part of the opening of a ketubba for Meshullam ha-Levi b. Ṣedaqa (groom) dated [13]91 (= 1080 CE). In the hand of Hillel b. ʿEli. (Information from CUDL)

Recto: Extract from Ruth 1. Verso: Fragment of a deed signed by Moshe ben Maymun, Damascus, late tenth century. The document includes a description of a piece of property that appears to have been part of a Palestinian-style ketubba and dowry. (Friedman, Jewish Marriage, vol. 2, 370-1 and CUDL) EMS

Part of a ketubba, with only a few words preserved. Part of the shemaʿ has been written between the lines in faded ink and a different hand. (Information from CUDL)

Part of a ketubba, with no names or date preserved. Between the lines, a different hand has practiced writing the Hebrew alphabet. Verso: part of a letter in Arabic (see separate entry). (Information from CUDL)

Part of a ketubba preserving only a few lines in large characters and the name of a witness, Saʿadya b. David. Verso: letter. (Information from CUDL)

Small fragment from the end of a ketubba, referring to the bride’s immersion (טבילה). Ca. 13th century. (Information from CUDL)

Part of a ketubba, written under the authority of Maṣliaḥ ha-Kohen (1127-1139 CE), in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Manassah (1100-1138 CE). (Information from CUDL)

Part of a ketubba, for Shemarya ha-Kohen (groom) and Sitt al-Bayt (bride). (Information from CUDL)

Part of a ketubba, with no details preserved. Ca. beginning of the 13th century. (Information from CUDL)

Bifolium from a court register containing a copy (nuskha; naqalnāhā mila be-mila) of a marriage contract between Tahir b. Abu al-Yemen [?] and Binat bint Ḥalfon whose fathers are both deceased. The marriage gift is fifty dinars and the dowry (partially mentioned) consists of valuable items like a neckband made of jets and pearls worth seven dinars, a pear pin, a shepherd's staff, a choker (hanak) with pearls and a lazam (jewelry worn on the chest) made of gold and pearls worth nine dinars. Written in the hand of Judge Mevorakh b. Natan. August 27, 1157.

Leaf from a notebook or register of some sort. The two pages are each headed "faṣl," like other documents from the dossier of the Mosul Nasi Shelomo b. Yishay (and this document may be in the same hand). Goitein initially read the date on verso as Elul 4955 AM, but it seems more likely that it is Elul 1553 Seleucid, which is 1242 CE. On recto there is a formulary for a clause in the marriage contract in which the groom is held responsible if he has intercourse with his wife before she has counted the full seven days and immersed in the ritual bath (miqve), in which case he has to divorce her with full ketubba payments. On verso there is the beginning of a court record, mentioning Shelomo ha-Talmid ha-Mevin, with pen trials in Hebrew script and jottings of accounts in Arabic script (mentioning two commodities and their weights; one of them is ṭabāshīr/bamboo chalk). (Information in part from CUDL and Goitein's notes.) ASE

Rough draft of a ketubba (marriage contract), with instructions to the scribe for drawing up the final version. Possibly written by the judge Ḥayyim known from other documents as a judge in the court of David I Maimonides and a relation by marriage. Dating: late 13th century, perhaps 1291–92. Written under the authority of the Nagid David b. Avraham b. Moshe Maimonides. The groom, Avraham, redeemed a woman who had been taken captive in ʿAkko, and now wishes to marry her. His wife consents for him to take a second wife and to even take two more wives after her (for a total of 4). Friedman deduces that the year is probably 1291 or 1292, because David Maimonides was in exile in ʿAkko from his enemies in Egypt from approximately 1285–89, and the Muslim conquest of ʿAkko from the Crusaders in 1291 is a likely occasion for a Jewish woman to have been taken captive and need to be redeemed. The Nagid David, back in Cairo, could have presided over this legal case due to his connections to the remaining Jewish community in ʿAkko. This is a very unusual document, and Goitein went so far as to call it, "the most bizarre Geniza document, both in content and outer appearance, I have ever seen." (Information from Friedman Polygyny, pp. 95–106.)

Fragment from a Babylonian ketubah. No further information is available. AA