Geniza Lab

Late bifolium, with two pages of prose followed by verses of a kinnah, concluding with an interesting illustration containing Arabic letters and the scribe's signature: Moshe Tanis (משה טאניס). ASE.

Literary text (Talmud?) with a colophon giving the date of copying: Nisan 502[.] AM, which is the 1260s CE.

Colophon draft for a muṣḥaf (Torah). The scribe is Shelomo ha-Levi b. Shemuel b. Seʿadya b. [Yiṣḥaq?] b. Yaʿaqov. The same man appears in T-S 8J6.9 (1231 CE); his brother Yosef b. Shemuel was also a well-known scribe and judge; and their father Shemuel was a judge in Maimonides' court. (Information in part from Amir Ashur and from Goitein, Med Soc II, pp. 228–29)

Colophon. Scribe: Moshe b. Yaʿaqov al-Mard[īnī?]. Location: Tel Yaʿqūb, "under the rule of Yūsuf b. Khalaf Agha in the Vilayet of Mārdīn," aka Tilyaqup, corresponding to present-day Tepealtı. Dated: Adar 5176 AM, which would typically be 1416 CE, but in this case is probably 1417 CE (by the 'Adam reckoning' or 'molad adam' which is equal to 'molad tohu' + 1, the idea being that year 1 begins not with creation ('molad tohu') but with Adam already created. On this see Gordin, "How to Avoid Some Pitfalls While Interpreting Dates in Hebrew Manuscripts," pp. 176 and 184). ASE

Colophon. Scribe: Natan ha-Kohen b. Yeshuʿa b. Yaʿaqov b. Yeshuʿa b. Yosef b. Peraḥya b. Shefaṭya. "In the colophons of books it is not uncommon to find the copyist mentioning his forefathers up to the seventh or eighth generation." (Goitein, Med. Soc., vi, 11 n.57)

Qaṣīda, ending, by ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAlī b. Ṣāliḥ al-Makkūdī (d.1405 CE), with a colophon giving the date 11 Rajab 989H (1581 CE). Verso contains many lines of Arabic text (90 degrees to recto, so probably not the same work), almost completely blotted out with ink. Much of it may still be legible though.

Colophon to a medical or pharmacological treatise. In Judaeo-Arabic. No name or date.

Colophon (FGP)

Looks like a small fragment from a literary piece with colophon from 1351 in Yemeni hand. AA

Colophon or ownership note on a book cover. 'This booklet belongs to Yiṣḥaq b. Ghālib ha-Ḥazzan (the cantor).' Dating: first half of the 12th century, assuming this is the same Yiṣḥaq b. Ghālib who signed documents by Ḥalfon b. Menashshe (e.g., Bodl. MS heb. b 11/31). On the other side, a dirge in Judaeo-Arabic.

Bifolium. Two of the pages contain rhyming and/or poetic Hebrew text, calligraphically written. Apparently the colophon to the book this used to belong to. It praises the man who composed the work for illuminating difficulties. Then gives the scribe's name: Yiṣḥaq b. Avraham (b. Me'ir b. ʿEzra?). Location: Baghdad. Dated: 1454 Seleucid, which is 1143/44 CE. Mentions Rabbi Netan'el "who from his mouth will read it, and he understands, and he writes it in his books" (?). On the facing page, in a different hand, and in Judaeo-Arabic, there is a recipe for good ink and a recipe for gilded līqa (the tuft of threads that lives in the inkwell). ASE. Go back to this*

Probably a colophon, but conceivably a letter. In Judaeo-Arabic. Opens with the titles and names of various distinguished people: the Gaon Rav [...] and al-Rayyis al-[...] and Yehosef his son Rosh ha-Midrash Qahal Yehosef and Rav Shemuel ha-Levi. "I have gathered in this book [what has come] into my hand from the words [al-kalām]. . . of my brother(?) . . . and I wrote it in my own hand. . ." The writer then gives the date of completion, probably Dhū l-Qaʿda 6[..] AH (although אלקדעה is written instead of אלקעדה) and 4[...] AM. If these readings are correct, the fragment was written betwen 1204 CE and 1239 CE.

Literary work containing Hebrew poetry and a section on the calendar including for the years 5923–78 AM, which corresponds to 1142–1218 CE. The hand is Sefaradi. There are two different colophons in two different hands (the first may be identical with the hand of the main text, but it is more stylized). The first gives the location as Fustat and the date as Tammuz [4]9[.]6 AM, perhaps Tammuz 4926 AM, which would be 1166 CE. The second mentions Alexandria and gives the year 1481 Seleucid = 566 AH, which is 1170 CE.

Colophon in Judaeo-Arabic. The work (...ʿalā madhhab al-[???]...) was completed in Rabīʿ I 1023 AH, which is 1614 CE, in the synagogue of al-Ḥakham ʿAṭiyya. There are several additional text blocks.

Colophon to Kitāb Khalq al-Insān by Abū l-Ḥasan Saʿīd ibn Hibat Allāh (1045–1101). In Judaeo-Arabic. This copy was completed 7 Shevat 4883 AM, which is January 1123 CE. The next lines of the colophon name (the patron?) al-Rayyis Abū Manṣūr Ṣāliḥ Ra's al-Mathība al-Hārūnī (=a Kohen?) b. [Su]laymān Ra's al-Mathība al-Hārūnī - which, according to the titles, name, nasab and date can fit the gaon Maṣliaḥ b. Solomon. On the author of the original text: Saʿīd b. Hibat Allāh was a "Nestorian Christian court physician to the ’Abbāsid caliphs al-Muqtadī (ruled 467-487 AH/1075-1094 CE) and al-Mustaẓhir (ruled 487-512 AH/1094-1118 CE) and physician at the ’Aḍudī hospital in Baghdad. This treatise on the generation and development of human beings from conception to death is in fifty chapters." (Information from Bodleian catalog, description of MS. Pococke 66.)

Colophon. "I copied this, Yosef Rosh ha-Seder b. Yaʿaqov Rosh Bei Rabanan (ZL), from the copy of the author (ZL), for myself, and I did not add to it except the text ... light...."

Colophon for a copy of masekhet Berakhot. Dedicated to Yeshuʿa b. [...] ha-Melammed. This is crossed out. Underneath, there is a note of a sale: Yakhin b. Ḥalfon purchased it for 16 dirhams. (Information from Goitein's index card)

Illustration for the first page of a book, there is Hebrew written on the bottom of the first page of the manuscript a revised edition of the ethics of the Syrian philosopher Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, which is found preserved in a Syrian monastery library and was copied in the year 1283CE / 672AH – Museum of Islamic Art – (number 284) – in Arabic. (information from Ḥassanein Muḥammad Rabīʿa. ed. Dalīl Wathā'iq al-Janīza al-Jadīda / Catalogue of the Documents of the New Geniza, 30). MCD.

two lists, probably colophon - needs examination. No image

Colophon of a notebook (זו הקוטראס) containing Hebrew prayers. Written by Nissim b. Nahray, probably still a child, in Qaṣr al-Shamʿ, Fustat (called Ṣoʿan Miṣrayim).