Geniza Lab

Recto: Colophon stating that this copy of the 'ketuvim' has been checked completely without any errors. There is a brief disquisition on the canonical raised letters such as the ʿayin in Job 38:15. Underneath, the date of the checking of the manuscript is given as Heshvan 127[2] Seleucid = 4721 AM, which is 960 CE. Verso: Ownership/acquisition note dated Kislev 135[.] Seleucid, which gives the range 1038–48 CE.

Epistle of the gaon Shemuel b. ʿEli of Baghdad. There is a colophon. This copy was completed Tishrei [1]473 Seleucid, which is 1161 CE. "In it [this copy] there is a shahāda of R. Yaʿaqov ha-Kohen b. Yosef." There is an addendum dated Tammuz 1486(?) Seleucid (which would be 1175 CE if this is the correct reading), added in Aleppo. Joins with T-S 8J2 and ENA 4011.74.

Colophon to a pamphlet containing two 'qedushas' on parashat Yitro. The scribe is Barukh Rofe b. (or grandson of?) Elʿazar Ḥazzan known as Rofe.

Colophon for an unidentified work. Location: Cairo. Dated: Sivan 1819 Seleucid = Muharram 914 AH = 1508 CE. On verso there is a note in Judaeo-Arabic referring to "my late cousin Yeshuʿa."

Colophon for an unknown work dated Shawwāl 896 Hijri, which is 1491 CE. "This work and its companion were written in the name of (=by?) אלהכ׳ b. Yehuda Ibn al-Khāzin. The most interesting element of this colophon is the subsequent statemen that the volume is dedicated to (part of the heqdesh of?) the Dār Sameaḥ = Dār Simḥa Qaraite synagogue. There is a marginal note in a different hand that reads, "At the beginning of the building/foundation of the aforementioned synagogue." Haggai Ben-Shammai has written that the Dār Simḥa synagogue (the source of much of the Firkovich, now RNL, collection) is known from documents from at least the beginning of the sixteenth century." Ben-Shamnmai, "Is 'The Cairo Geniza' a Proper Name or a Generic Noun?" in From a Sacred Source, p. 44. This document supports that dating and suggests that the synagogue was new (or renovated?) in 1491 CE. But see Yevr.-Arab. II 850, a document from 1337 CE that shows that the synagogue existed 150 years earlier.