Geniza Lab

Marriage document. An upper part of an ornamented ketubah, from Cairo, Friday, 14th of Adar Sheni (according to the calendar 14th is Saturday, Passover evening). The marriage gift is 600 Gold (dinars). The groom is Shlomo Francis and the bride Gracia. Hebrew and Aramaic. AA

Marriage document. An ornamented ketubah from Rashid, 1785. The text is complete, but the left margin with the decorations is torn. The groom is מסעוד סוגייר (Masʿūd Sughayr). The bride's name is not preserved. The marriage gift is 3000 Mayidis. Signed by the groom and Moshe Pesah משה פסח Hebrew and Aramaic

Marriage document. An ornamented ketubah from Fustat. Late, 18th century. The year is not preserved. The bride's name is Ester, the groom's name is not preserved. Signed by Hayyim Shalom and two other fancy signatures that are difficult to read. Hebrew and Aramaic. AA

Marriage document. A torn, faded and damaged ketubah. The name שמריה Shemarya is preserved, probably the bride's or groom's father. The marriage gift is 50 dinars. Although the date is not preserved we can date it to 1176 onward, thanks to the appearance of the stipulation regarding the bride's ritual bath after menstruation, enacted by Maimonides in 1176 (see M.A Friedman, "Social Realities in Egypt and Maimonides' Rulings on Family Law” Maimonides as Codifier of Jewish Law [N. Rakover ed., Jerusalem 1987], p. 230), and appearing in almost every ketubah from this year on (e.g ENA 3811.2). Here only few words from this stipulation appear in l. 11. Hebrew and Aramaic. AA

Marriage document. Fragment from a left side of ketubah de'irkasa כתובה דארכסא, that is a ketubah written as a replacement for a lost ketubah (see also ENA NS 3.3). This we learn from the term כתובתא קדמתא [= her former ketubah] in l. 6. The name of the groom is Manṣūr. 11th century? Hebrew and Aramaic. AA

Marriage document (?). Torn and damaged fragment, barely legible. Few words can be read, such as מתקאלי, זוזי. Also the verb ויהב, which suggest it might be a remnant of a ketubah, probably 10th-11th century. Hebrew and Aramaic. AA

Marriage document. Damaged and creased document. Contains list of items, commonly found in dowry lists included or attached to a ketubah. Here, not as usual, we find them with no prices for each item, so the actual value was combined into one sum. The additional mohar (marriage gift) was 40 dinars. 11 Century. Judeo-Arabic. AA

Marriage document. Draft of a prenuptial agreement, by Ḥalfon b. Menashshe ha-Levi. Damaged. Aramaic. AA

Marriage document. Two small fragments from a dowry list, probably from a ketubah. 11th century. Judeo-Arabic, Aramaic. AA

Marriage contract (ketubba). Fragment (lower right corner). Bride: Mubāraka. Groom: David. Witnesses: Yefet b. Ṭoviyya; Seʿadya b. Ḥalfon.

Marriage document. Minute fragment. On recto only a few letters have survived, but they are clearly from the top of a ketubah. On verso few words in Judeo-Arabic, in a different hand, probably from a legal document connected to the same couple. We find such legal documents, written after a marital dispute or divorce, on the verso of some ketubahs (e.g TS 24.15 + TS 20.62, which contains two legal documents on the verso) Hebrew, Aramaic, Judeo-Arabic. AA

Marriage document. A torn and damaged ketubah. Contains few lines from the dowry list, the monogamy clause, the trustworthiness clause and the stipulation regarding the bride's ritual bath after menstruation, enacted by Maimonides in 1176 (see M.A Friedman, "Social Realities in Egypt and Maimonides' Rulings on Family Law” Maimonides as Codifier of Jewish Law [N. Rakover ed., Jerusalem 1987], p. 230). On verso remnants of colored decoration. Hebrew, Aramaic, Judeo-Arabic. AA Dating: after 1176

Marriage contract between a Rabbanite man Khalfā b. Saʿūd, son of Farajallah b. Nafīs and a divorced Rabbanite woman Fāṭima. The marriage was commemorated upon the agreed sum of 7 dīnārs of Sulṭānī al-jadīd and 400 half Sūlaimānī dirhams.

Ketubba (marriage contract). Groom: Yehuda b. ʿAmram. Bride: Sutayt bt. Shemuel Gaʾon, virgin. Location: Jerusalem. Dating: Late 10th century. Doodles in the margins.

Marriage contract (ketubba). Bottom part only. Bride: Ṭova bt. Ḥusayn. Groom: Shelomo b. Yisrael known as Ibn Ṣabāḥ. Nine signatures are preserved on this fragment, including that of Sahlān b. Avraham; other witnesses include Avraham ha-Levi b. Yosef Baqāʾ b. Mevasser; Hillel ha-Levi b. Yiṣḥaq; Aharon ha-Kohen b. Sar Shalom; Nuʿmān b. Binyamin; Furayj b. Ḥusayn. (Information from Goitein’s index card)

Marriage contract (ketubba) in the Palestinian style. Location: Tyre. Dated: August 1079 CE. In the hand of the ḥaver ʿAmram b. Ṣedaqa (see also T-S AS 150.230, T-S 16.136, T-S AS 156.394, and T-S AS 150.230). Edited by both Gil and Friedman.

Marriage contract (ketubba). On parchment. Location: New Cairo. Dated: [Thursday,] 15 Kislev 1461 Seleucid, which is 17 November 1149 CE, under the authority of the Nagid Shemuel b. Ḥananya. Groom: Merayot b. Ṣadaqa. Bride: ʿAmāʾim bt. Tiqva. (The only name preserved on recto is Tiqva; the rest come from the record on verso.) On verso there is a legal record (written after the divorce) certifying that ʿAmāʾim has received the 5 dinars of the delayed marriage payment “specified in this ketubba.” This interpretation is tentative owing to the state of the document and the fact that Goitein seems to have understood the payment as maintenance for nursing/rearing a child for 5 months. (But note also that the poor state of the previous PGP transcription suggests that the fragment was even more crumpled when Goitein examined it than it is now.) Also on verso, there are four undeciphered lines in Arabic script. (Information in part from Goitein’s index card.)

Ketubba in a very nice large script, written on vellum, probably late. the bride named Hara. The groom father name is Dunash. Also mentioned Efraim ibn al-Hurmil

Marriage contract (ketubba). Qaraite. Groom: Ṣedaqa. Location: Fustat(?). Dating: 1020–30s(?). Witnesses: Avraham b. Khalaf ha-Kohen; Netanʾel b. Revaḥ/Rawḥ ha-Levi; Barakāt b. Mubārak; Hiba b. Yosef; Avraham b. Musallam (possibly the scribe of the document); Levi b. Yaʿaqov ha-Levi. On verso there are writing exercises in Arabic script (the beginnings of drafts of letters).

Legal document. In Hebrew. Location: Fustat. Dated: [12]91 Seleucid, which is 979/80 CE. Settlement of a marital dispute between Shelomo b. Yeshuʿa ha-Levi and Sittāna bt. Ah[aron]. The dispute evidently arose on account of lack of offspring. They went to the court intending to divorce, but they ended up settling. The main outcome has to do with Sittāna's burial expenses should she die before her husband. According to Jewish law, burial expenses are incumbent on the husband if he outlives his wife; in exchange, he inherits her property. (Whereas if he dies first, it is the wife's family who buries her and inherits her property.) In the present document, Shelomo commits to this obligation and, moreover, to bury her in the same quality of clothing that she has been accustomed to wear ("with which I clothed her") in her lifetime. To this end, the document lists the kinds of clothes she wears. Witnesses: the scribe [...] b. Shemuel ha-Kohen; Fashshāṭ b. Shemuel (who also signed T-S 16.49 and T-S 12.496); and Baqāʾ b. Mevasser (who also signed T-S 12.161, ENA 4010.10, and apparently also T-S 16.49). (Information from Friedman, Polygyny.)