Geniza Lab

Medical recipe (צפה מגלי).

Recto: Judaeo-Arabic recipe involving starch (nashā'; not "starch of Isaac" but yuṣḥaq = let it be crushed), and some jottings in Arabic script including Coptic numerals. The text of the recipe exhibits the early Judaeo-Arabic orthographic feature of representing ḍād by dalet. See Isaacs, Medical, p. 9. Verso: Arabic jottings including Coptic numerals. Information in part from Baker/Polliack catalog.

Recipes in Judaeo-Arabic. 3 bifolia. Alchemy? Amulets? Paper-making?

Verso: Compound prescription/recipe (ṣifa murakkab). In Arabic script. Contains the glyph. Ingredients include oak gall, gum, vitriol, Andarānī salt, lapis lazuli, saffron, and camphor. Needs further examination.

Prescription or recipe in Judaeo-Arabic. Likely medical or culinary (wa-yustaʿmal al-... bi-ṭabīkh al-ḥummuṣ(?)... wa-l-ʿaṣāfir...). Mentions honey, cloves, milk. On recto there is a document in Arabic script, far too damaged to read without special imaging.

Recipes for effecting desired results with Psalms (shimmush tehillim).

Recipe, alchemical. (Information in part from Goitein's index card)

Recipe for a certain kind of wine ("al-nabīdh al-mudabbir"). On verso there are calendrical calculations mentioning Tishrei 1423 Seleucid, which is 1111 CE.

Letter in the hand of Maimonides, with a medical recipe consisting of (iron) water, lentisk and spikenard, and a mysterious mention of a huge number of wooden ships ("There arrived from the wooden (ships) that which blocked the sea/Nile, 100 ships and 18 great ships, all of them wood.") (Information from CUDL, join from CUDL.) See Wagner, E. (2007). A newly-discovered fragment of a letter written by Maimonides (T-S AS 152.86). [Genizah Research Unit, Fragment of the Month, October 2007]. https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.40720.

Recipes (alchemical?) mainly in Hebrew with many Romance words mixed in (mercury, sal natri). Late.

Recipe or prescription. In Judaeo-Arabic. Includes saffron.

Medical recipes for dental hygiene. Medical text regarding the importation and trade of miswāk sticks to be used as toothbrushes, of honey, ginger, pepper, zatar (wild oregano) and other spices that are related to the treatment of mouth and tooth. The text preserves some indication for the preparation of the aforementioned ingredients, including their baking; other instructions deal with the dipping of the miswāk in a medical preparation. Mention is made of glass from Syria and of Salt Andarānī, which is believed to be the same as the salt of Sodom mentioned in the Talmud and to derive from the Syrian town of Andara. Information from CUDL.

Recipe (nuskha murakkab) in Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: Perhaps 12th century. Probably for ink, based on the ingredients and instructions and the phrase "ilā an yasīr fī qawām al-[ḥi]br" (third line from the bottom). Ingredients include oak galls (ʿafṣ), gum arabic (samgh ʿarabī), Cypriot vitriol (zāj qubrusī, misspelled קרבסי in the document), an unknown ingredient in a lacuna, a bit of saffron, a bit of rock salt (milḥ darānī, also known as andarānī), lapis lazuli (lazuward). The ingredients are soaked in water; some green myrtle (or myrrh, if myrtle is unavailable) is also involved; and there is also a stage of leaving it out in the sun. At the end of the process, you sprinkle it with a bit of sugar candy (sukkar nabāt) or sugar syrup (jullāb). ASE

Summary of the extraction and medicinal uses of myrrh gum (from "a type of tree in Yemen"). In Judaeo-Arabic.

Entry in court notebook (#54). Prescription. Recipe for preparation of an ointment consisting of powdered litharge (martak masḥūq); calf suet (shaḥm kulā ʿijl); aged, fine oil (zayt ṭayyib ʿatīq); and perhaps dragon's blood (reading קטאר as qāṭir). The title is difficult to read; Goitein suggests "marham kulā" (kidney ointment, with the dot over the letter preceding kulā indicating that it should be deleted). Also possible is "marham nakhlī" (date-palm ointment). Contemporary documents and literary sources indicate that a "date-palm ointment" was used for the treatment of wounds; cf. T-S 8J20.26. Although no component of this ointment derives from a date-palm, it is to be stirred while it cooks with a green palm leaf (yuḥarrak bi-jarīd akhḍar), and plausibly the same leaf is somehow incorporated or used to apply the completed ointment on to the desired site. NB: Goitein referred to this document as folio 21 (Firk. II NS 1700.21) in accordance with the foliation written in pen; but the correct folio is 22, as written in pencil (the librarian with the pen gave two folios the number 8). ASE.