Geniza Lab

Fragment of a striking amulet, partially colored in with green ink

Hebrew amulet formularies.

8 pages of a Hebrew and Judaeo-Arabic work on magic and medicine.

Late Hebrew amulet, with doodles and using the disappearing-word technique

Long, elaborate amulet for Sāda bt. Samar. Parchment, written on hair side; flesh side is blank.

Long amulet for Simḥa bat Esther (suggesting late and perhaps Sephardic origin, since Simḥa was a man's name in the classical Geniza period), asking the archangel Michael (ונבקש ממעלת קדושתכם, almost like it is a letter) to make her pleasing to her husband, whose name has not been filled in.

Kabbalistic menora surrounded by floral motifs composed of micrography. Visually arresting. Also massive: 51.5 x 37 cm and missing at least ⅓ from the top.

Bifolium from a book of segulot.

Page with a magical spell for being loved and silencing enemies.

Leaf from a magical treatise, including illustrations of Senoy, Sansenoy and Semangelof.

Fragment of an amulet in Judaeo-Arabic, probably for a certain Asaf b. Berakhya.

Amulet for protection, calligraphic, including the phrase "Senoy, Sansenoy, Semangelof, Adam ve-Ḥava Lilit Ḥutz."

Magical amulet, to be hung up it seems (scalloped top edge, like a plaque), with the formula "Senoy Sansenoy Semangelof Adam ve-Hava Lilit ḥuṣ." Same scalloped top edge and same text as AIU VI.B.31

Bifolium, probably from a literary compendium. Dating: Late, possibly 18th or 19th century. Two of the pages are a story about a female slave and a king—needs further examination. The other two pages are love spells in Judaeo-Arabic, apparently transcribed from Islamic/Arabic-script models, as one of them invokes the prophets Moses and Jesus(!).

4 pages of geomancy divinations, in which the questions are given (e.g. How high will the Nile be, and will produce be cheap or expensive? Who is the thief?), several dated 1797/8 CE (5558). There is also a magic square and some numerology

Interesting fragment of a grid containing prognostications in Judaeo-Arabic with interspersed Arabic for various questions. E.g., "This man swore falsely" or "This woman will become pregnant" (הדא אלמראה حبلى באדן אללה).

Medical treatise in Judaeo-Arabic. Bifolium from a Judaeo-Arabic paramedical treatise on the virtues of various kinds of animal substances. ¶ . . . grind it and knead it with sheep dung and some saffron and apply it to the gout that arises from the cold. ¶ And against bedbugs, take the bile of a billy goat and mix it with oil and beat it gently and paint with it the bed and the walls, and the bedbugs will go if God wills. ¶ The brain of the kid. Cook it in oil and add sugar and Kirmani cumin and mix it gently, and drink one mithqal in hot water for pain of the heart and the lung. ¶ The brain of the goat. . . . ¶ Goat milk is lighter than the milk of women or donkeys, and camel milk is good for a dry cough. ¶ To make iron poisonous, take sour goat milk and mix it with the blood of a billy goat and the urine of an ox, and mix it together and rub it on the blades and the arrowheads, and immerse the blades in it when they are red-hot. . . . This is for an enemy. ¶ The hide of the weasel. If you make parchment from it and write on it for the insane and the possessed (or captives? מחבוסין), it is effective. ¶ The Barbary sheep. The bile of the Barbary sheep, if it is mixed with frankincense and ginger and drunk in the bath on an empty stomach, is effective against pain of the spleen. ¶ The brain of the Barbary sheep. Mix it with honey and rue water, and he who has pain in the liver should drink two dirhams of it on an empty stomach. It is hot. ¶ The monkey. He who tastes the meat of a monkey will never speak again but will ישיר (?). ¶ The heart of the monkey. It should be roasted and יגכף (?). Grind it and dissolve two dirhams of it in wine and aged honey, and palpitations and shortness of breath will go away, and it will give courage to the coward and sharpen the mind and help with a headache. And if you wish to give someone bad dreams, put the hide or the hair of a monkey under his head. ¶ Take as snuff a lentil-sized piece of monkey kidney with the milk of a female slave and violet oil for the smell that [the fragment ends here]." ASE

Medical treatise in Hebrew, 8 pages, with magical/astrological/demonic elements.

Page from a Judaeo-Arabic treatise on the virtues of gems and magical spells to do with them and Arabic letters to inscribe on them, for example if you wish to become beloved of men and women and invincible.

Page from a Hebrew paramedical treatise. One of the remaining sections is on the segulot/virtues of various parts of the hoopoe.