Geniza Lab

Recto: On the right is list of surnames known from the late Genizah period along with numbers: Bibas (spelled Pipas here), Alarcon, Hapis (?), Pinto, Qarun, Yuʿbaṣ, Agi. On the left is a list of materia medica with numbers, then a small illustration. Verso: Numbers and sums.

Accounts of a druggist, giving amounts of materia medica in the column on the right and prices on the left.

Accounts of a druggist, giving amounts of materia medica in the column on the right and prices on the left.

20 small fragments. Image 4 and Image 14 and Image 17 are fragments of legal documents in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Images 5 and 15 are from a printed work on the laws of Shabbat in Ladino. Images 6 and 16 are a Judaeo-Arabic letter (right side of recto, left side of verso) regarding business in foods/drugs (pepper, wormwood) and mentinoing Abū l-Surūr, from Yefet b. Menashshe to his brother (Abū Saʿīd?). Image 7 lists the names of various Nasis, Hizqiyah ha-Nasi and Shelomo ha-Nasi ben David ha-Nasi Rosh ha-Golah. Image 9 is another literary printed fragment in Ladino. Image 13 + Image 19 is a list of materia medica on one side, mentioning Abū Saʿd on the other, and preserving the remnants of an Arabic document.

Account in Judaeo-Arabic, listing mainly materia medica.

Late account in Judaeo-Arabic, listing many materia medica and chemicals: tamarind (tamr hindī), arsenic (zarnīkh), chicory seeds (bizr hindibāʾ), barberries, cloves, chebulic myrobalan, mercury (zaybaq), mouse poison (samm faʾr), kohl, etc.

Accounts in Judaeo-Arabic. Mainly materia medica: sharāb (syrup); ṭabāshīr; samgh (=ṣamgh, gum); sabr (=ṣabr) soqoṭrī (=Socotrene aloe). Also mentions [...] b. al-Rūmiyya ('the son of the Byzantine woman').

Letter from Yefet b. Menashshe b. al-Qaṭa'if to his brother Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Yefet has sent with Efrayim a vessel containing 20 dirhams of lizard droppings and Ḥalfon is to try to sell them. There are lots of other instructions about small transactions and letters to be forwarded. Yefet mentions the person (Yūsuf al-Qallā'?) "who was your doctor in Fusṭāṭ." Yefet sends greetings to Sitt Naʿīm, who it seems is none other than Ḥalfon's wife (see Wagner, E. (2007). Ḥalfon’s wife, Mosseri Ia.29. [Genizah Research Unit, Fragment of the Month, July 2007]. https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.40294). ASE.

Judaeo-Arabic list of things, books, and merchandise, with the names of the people with whom they are deposited. Information from FGP.

Letter from Faraḥ b. Ismāʿīl (not necessarily the same as the 11th-century merchant) to Ḥanokh (?) b. Avraham. Contains very detailed orders for materia medica and other specialized commodities.

Memorandum from Khalaf b. Isḥāq al-Yamanī. In Arabic script, with additional notes in Judaeo-Arabic. Ordering pharmaceuticals from Egypt. There is an entire short book devoted to this document (Albert Dietrich, Zum Drogenhandel im islamischen Ägypten, 1954). This document is summarized in Goitein and Friedman, India Book 2, ב50, but Goitein and Friedman did not edit it. NB: The images of this document may be accessed on FGP under the shelfmark p. Heid. Hebr. 12. However, it is more often cited as p. Heid. Arab. 912.

Recto: Letter from an unknown writer, on his way to Alexandria, to an unknown addressee, in Fustat. In Judaeo-Arabic. The writer apologizes for the delay in sending this letter, and explains that every time he began to write, he became sad and felt sick due to his separation from the addressee. He reports that he did not find the wool ʿarḍī garment in Fustat, but hopefully will find it in Alexandria and will send it to the addressee. He repeats at least twice more that the only reason he did not write earlier was his sadness and worry (ḍīq ṣadrī, shughl qalbī). (Information in part from Mediterranean Society, V, p. 191.) Verso: List of materia medica in Arabic script. ASE.

Recto: Letter from Moshe b. Levi ha-Levi, Qalyub, to a family member in Fustat. Partial translation from S. D. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 2:271: "I am sending you with the bearer of this letter 15 dirhems. Please buy for me 1¼ pounds of emblic (amlaj) [“Indian gooseberry,” see above], approximately for 4¼ dirhems or less; 2½ pounds of deep-red rose water (mā' ward), approximately ¾ d.; A fuqqā‘a (bottle of potions), approximately ½ d. or less; 1 pound eye powder, well made, on special order, approximately 2 d. or less; 1 miswāk (tooth-cleaning twig), approximately 2 d.; 1 pound antimony, approximately 3¼ or 3½ d. or less; 2½ pounds cosmetic cream (mathāth), approximately 2¼ d.or less. The writer also sends three drafts of dirges (qinnot) and asks his brother Abū l-Ḥasan (Yedutun ha-Levi) to correct them. Verso: Petition draft in Arabic script to the Amir Sharaf al-Dawla (?). The handwriting is that of Moshe b. Levi (compare ENA NS 68.11). Lines 8-15 are the substance of the petition (وينهي انه قد اشتهى...), which requires further examination. The writer (perhaps Moshe) seems to repeat several times his desire to come to the great city. ASE.

Note on a deposition in court about a sending of oriental goods carried by two merchants killed in the East African port ʿAydhāb. Location: Fustat. Dating: ca. 1104 CE. Hastily written by Rabbi Avraham b. Shemaʿya. See Goitein's attached notes for a translation with extensive commentary. The goods include "a piece of Chinese jasper, a mann of Chinese (petrified) craw-fish, and 3 aprons of asbestos, which are not burnt by fire."

Letter from a physician in Silifke (Seleucia) to his sister's husband, presumably in Fustat. Dated 21 July 1137. "The Emperor John II Comnenus was on his way to Antioch—held at that time by Raymond of Poitiers—and a part of his powerful army passed through the town in which this letter was written. The Byzantines arrived before the gates of Antioch on August 29. Our letter, however, reports a rumor that the city had already fallen forty days earlier. The writer, a physician, even expresses the expectation that the Emperor might take Aleppo and Damascus as well and already placed an order for medical books which would be looted there from the homes of his colleagues." The writer had emigrated from Fatimid Egypt to Byzantium. Goitein suggests that he traveled initially with the Fatimid navy, as he lists letters he sent in previous years from the army camp at Jaffa, from Rhodes, and from the island of Chios, which were occupied by the Venetian navy in 1224. The physician also stayed in Constantinople before settling in Seleucia and marring a woman with a Greek name (Korasi). He repeatedly describes how wealthy he is despite having arrived penniless, and urges his in-laws to follow his example and join him, no matter how much they have to leave behind. [Recto 1-8:] He opens with a discussion of the fertility of his sister; she has already borne two girls to the recipient, who is now presumably hoping for a son. She has not been able to become pregnant "due to her emaciated state"; the writer believes he would be able to give her medications to allow her to conceive "even after the emaciation." (Goitein's reads shurb instead of shaḥb, and zawāl instead of huzāl, yielding, "My sister did not become pregnant despite the many medicines. If you were here, I would fix her pregnancy, by my life, even after she had ceased to bear children.") The writer's own wife never conceived except with medication. [Recto 8-9:] The writer was unable to cure Avraham, "the little beggar from Akko," who died and left his son an orphan. [Recto 10-17:] The writer provides a detailed list of the dowry that he gave his son-in-law Shemuel b. Moshe b. Shemuel the Longobardian merchant, worth altogether 200 dinars. [Recto 17-21:] The writer explains that his own letters may have never arrived because he used to send valuable materia medica with them, including mulberry concentrate (rubb tūt), ribes (rībās), barberries (barbārīs), Gentiana (ghāfit) leaves and extract, and absinthe (afsintīn). [Recto 21-27:] He lists the five letters he has sent in past years in exchange for only one from the recipients, including Abū Zikrī Yaḥyā and Abū Naṣr b. Isḥāq. [Recto 27-31:] He offers messianic wishes, citing Daniel 12:11 and a piyyut for Havdala written by the recipient's father. [Recto 31-38:] He writes of his great happiness and wealth, including a house worth 200 dinars and 400 barrels of wine. [Verso 1-4:] If the recipient really does join him, he should bring the medical books that the writer left behind. Regardless, he is hoping to obtain some medical books from the loot of Aleppo and Damascus. [Verso 4-22:] He conveys news of family and friends. [Verso 22-24:] He requests a quarter dirhem of seeds of mallow (mulūkhiyah), mandrake (yabrūḥ), and althaea (khiṭmiyyah), as these are unavailable in his location. Information from Goitein's attached summary and translation. EMS. ASE.

Business letter in Hebrew and Arabic script to Abū l-Ḥasan Binyamin requesting the dispatch of merchandise to Qalyub, including medical supplies, via a ghulām, and mentioning the broker Banin.

Account from a druggist for a delivery to a household. In Judaeo-Arabic. He had already been paid 1 dinar weighing 21 qirat + 2 ḥabbas worth (ṣarfuhu) 36.5 dirhams (i.e., the dinar:dirham rate of exchange was 1:40). From a previous transaction, the druggist owed the customer 50 dirhams, which means that the customer's credit was 86.5 dirhams. The cost came to 89.25 + 1.75 for transport = 91 dirhams. The balance was 4.5 dirhams, to be paid to the bearer. There are 25 items (with quantities). Much different from those in T-S Ar.30.274. (Information from Goitein's note card.) It is not entirely clear from Goitein's notes who owed what to whom, so take this description with a grain of salt.

Accounts in Judaeo-Arabic. Several foods and materia medica are listed.

Accounts in Judaeo-Arabic. The hand may be known. Dating: 11th or 12th century. Mentions people such as 'the woman' (al-sitt); Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm Ibn Siqbāl al-Andalusī; Barakāt Ibn Shūʿa; "my cousin (ibn ʿammī) Yiṣḥaq; and 'the woman the daughter of al-Kharazī.' Lists both credits and debits. Concerns a wide range of commodities, from household goods to garments to foods and materia medica (e.g., sumac, chebulic myrobalan, a preserve, qāqullā, rhubarb) to gems (e.g., a ruby worth 2 dinars) and gold (e.g., unminted washed gold (dhahab maghzūl, i.e. maghsūl)). (Information in part from Baker/Polliack catalogue.)

Most of the fragment consists of accounts in rudimentary Judaeo-Arabic. The word ṭibbī appears in several places, but the names of the commodities are tricky to decipher. As are the names of the customers: Ab[ū] Fadl (with a dāl); Abū Riḍā al-ʿAṭṭ[ā]r; Abū Saʿd (with a shin). There is a list in Arabic script as well, headed Ṣāḥib al-Dukkān: 1/2 raṭl of [...]; 3 ounces of zayt ṭayyib (?); 3 ounces of soap (ṣābūn); 1 raṭl and 3 ounces of verdigris (zinjār); and 3 ounces of qaṭāra [=qaṭrān?]. ASE.