Geniza Lab

Letter in Arabic script from a father to his son Abū l-Majd. "The fire was in our hearts because of you, how you spent shabbat over bread and cheese (i.e., without meat). If it weren't for Yaʿīsh and how he asked the Rayyis to 'send them something to eat,' we wouldn't have found anyone to bring you anything.... If every shabbat you get up and come on Friday, spend shabbat with us, and travel back on Sunday, the way is long...." On verso he mentions that he has managed to send a sweet (ḥalāwa, v2) and possibly peaches (khawkh, v3). "I want to come to you, but I don't know the way." He has also sent something which he wants the son to work on very carefully (wa-ʿaqlak bi-l-ghalaṭ) for Abū l-Faraj Ibn al-Dujājī, evidently for Abū l-Faraj's son, since he then writes that "his son's name is—"; he then switches into Hebrew for the blessing for a son (ha-malʾakh ha-goʾel) and reveals the name to be Shelomo b. Yeshuʿa ha-Levi.

Accounts in Judaeo-Arabic. Late. Mainly for foodstuffs: eggplant, coriander, mulūkhiyya, chickpeas, etc.

Accounts listing food products in two columns. (Information from Goitein's index cards).

An inventory dated 8 Jumada II of a shop selling fruit and sugar, the ingredients for homemade candy "for those who wished to enjoy the fruit in a state other than natural." Lists a large amount of regular sugar and a small one of rock sugar, 100 pounds of hazelnuts and smaller quantities of pomegranate seeds, sumac, pistachios and two types of raisins. Also banana leaves, probably used for wrapping. Goitein has a full translation in the footnote. See Med. Soc., IV: 246, ix C 1 n. 152.

Accounts in Arabic script. Late. List of agricultural products, fruits and spices, quantity and price. Currency: fulūs. On the other side there is some charming Arabic love poetry and a few lines of pen trials in Hebrew.

Private accounts according to days (Monday and Friday) listing commodities with an assigned numerical value (quantity? price?). Some commodities include milk, almonds, chicken, meat, raisins, and herbs.

Order to a pastry chef: "To the elder Abī Saʿd, may God preserve him: please take two copper coins as a deposit, and give the bearer a raṭl of well-done ringlets [ḥulayqāt, probably a type of doughnut]. If you make cakes tomorrow, prepare for me two raṭls of small cakes (kuʿaykāt) of the utmost smallness for me." Proof that cake-pops were invented in medieval Cairo? Goitein: "Cakes, called kaʿk in Arabic (a word that seems, however, not to be connected with its English equivalent), also were normally bought in the bazaar, and the name or designation ka'ki, or cake master, is rather frequent. Here is an order to a cake master, carefully written on a tiny piece of paper: The pastrycook, khamīrī, was another familiar figure." Goitein, Med. Soc. I, 114.

Late list of foodstuffs and amounts in Judaeo-Arabic, it seems with some Hebrew too. Items named include oil, honey, taḥina (? spelled with a tav), garlic, coriander, pepper, saffron, differnt kinds of sugar, sesame ("shumshum"), anise, cinnamon, and clove.

Recipe(s) in Judaeo-Arabic. Uses coriander; caraway; cinnamon; mastic; saffron; zaʿtar; cumin; anise; sesame; hemp / cannabis seed (qinnab); raisins; cloves; and walnuts(?).

A distressed letter to Abū ʿImrān, in the house of Umm Ḥasana, on the alley of the synagogue, Fustat. The handwriting and spelling are very rudimentary. The letter opens with the usual, "I assure you that I am in full well-being and health, all I lack is the sight of you. Otherwise: we are in terrible distress from the high prices and the lack of a living. We go five days without seeing bread, eating only turnips and fava beans and fresh dates. . . we have no food other than this. Life is worthless to me, and I beat my head from the distress and the killing." The writer desperately awaits a letter from his cousins (awlād ʿammi); perhaps there will be relief in it. He has heard that the addressee is studying to be a tailor and wishes him great success. He sends regards to various members of the addressee's family. The scribe may be the same as in T-S Ar.30.246 and numerous related fragments (books of magic and astrology). ASE.

Recto: Letter from Yehuda to an unknown addressee. Written in Judaeo-Arabic. Distinctive (Levantine or Iraqi?) handwriting. Deals with business matters, mainly produce (plums/prunes, dates, ḥashīsha, rose conserve (ward murabbā), sugar. Verso: Accounts in Arabic script, headed, "This is all of what Sulaymān left before he traveled." There is is some overlap with the goods on recto, e.g. the rose conserve.

Letter from the sister of Yeshuʿa b. Ismāʿīl al-Makhmūrī, in Tripoli, Libya, to her brother Yeshuʿa b. Ismāʿīl al-Makhmūrī. In the handwriting of ʿAllūsh the shammash. Dating: ca. 1065. While Yeshuʿa is dealing with the import and export of goods, his sister asks for help because she is in a very bad situation. T-S 10J19.20 is another version of the same letter (differences are noted in curly brackets in this partial translation). "I have been waiting all year for a letter from you to learn your news. The fuyūj came, and I did not see a letter. {This increased the preoccupation of my heart.} I went out to inquire about your news, and they told me you were ill (ḍaʿīf). I went out of my mind. {I fasted and wept and did not change my clothing or enter the bath, neither I nor your sister.} I vowed not to eat during the day, not to change my clothing, and not to enter the bath, neither I nor my daughter, until your letter arrived with your news. The ships arrived, and I went down, with my hand on my heart, to hear your news. The men came down and told us that you were well. I thanked God who made the end good." Goitein, and later Krakowski, used this letter to illustrate the intense affective bonds between brother and sister, as well as the notion of fasting as an intercession for a loved one who is sick (Goitein, Med Soc V, p. 97). Yet it is also the case that their relationship has lapsed—the brother has not contacted the sister in a year, not even sending greetings in his letter to Tammām ("my heart was wounded by this"). In the meantime, she has fallen into terrible financial difficulties. Her vows of self-negation and insistent repetition of "I have nobody except God and you" are also a demonstration of how much the sister has suffered from the brother's behavior, how much she thinks about him despite his neglect, and an attempt to elicit a response from him at last. Regarding the specifics of her financial difficulties, see Krakowski, Coming of Age, p. 150, where the relevant passage is translated: "My brother, I have become embroiled in a quagmire from which I do not think we can be freed—I and a young orphan girl (i.e., her daughter). What occurred was that my son-in-law (i.e., the girl’s fiancé) wintered in Salerno and returned only with the Egyptian ships; then he said to me, “I will take the girl.” I said to him, “What are you thinking? As I was this year, I have nothing.” Then people advised me that I should borrow and incur debt (i.e., for a lavish dowry) and give her to him, because the Rūm (i.e., Normans) have burnt the world. Now . . . if free persons could be sold for dirhams, I would be the first to be sold, for I cannot describe my predicament to you . . . (I swear) by these lines that when Passover came I had not even a farthing’s worth of chard, nor even a dirham; instead I cut a nettle from the ruins and cooked it. . . . My brother, help me with some portion of this debt engulfing me—do not abandon me and do not forsake me." Yeshuʿa b. Ismāʿīl al-Makhmūrī, incidentally, was prone to illness: see also T-S 16.163 and T-S Misc.25.124 (as noted by Krakowski), and T-S 12.389 and BL OR 5542.20. (Information largely from Goitein, Gil, and Krakowski.) VMR. ASE.

Legal document. Partnership agreement. Written in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Dated: 1003-1004. Location: Fustat. In bad repair, this fragment (T-S 8J22.16) reveals part of a partnership document between ʿOvadya and Menashshe ha-Kohen. It is signed by Ḥalfōn b. Manasseh and Manasseh ha-Kohen b. Jacob, thus datable to the first half of the twelfth century. Each of the partners is to receive a copy of the agreement, which is enacted in accordance with both their wills, as well as a specific appraisal (which is not preserved). This appraisal may have detailed the assets of the partnership and each partner’s contribution. Division of profits and losses is not preserved. The relationship is described both as a shutafut and a shirka. The term shirka may be used to refer to an act of qinyan; lines 8-9 seem to refer to the act of shirka along with acts of payment and appraisal. (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture", 187-188). T-S 12.525 expresses that the store sold olive oil and legumes, and the partners invested equally (9 dinars each, ʿOvadya in cash and Menashshe in goods such as linseed oil, olives, and lemon juice). The term of the contract was one year and should a party leave, he would pay the other 2 dinars. Each party received a copy. (Information from Weiss, "Legal Documents written by the Court Clerk Halfon Ben Manasse", 149-150)

Legal document. Partnership agreement. Dating: Mamluk period (1250–1517), per Goitein. This document preserves a partnership agreement between two teachers, Raḍī b. ‘Abd al-‘Azīz b. Raḍī and Yeshu‘a Dukhān, in the manufacture and sale of cheese and other dairy products, for an unspecified fixed period. Each partner contributes both labor and capital: Raḍī is to be responsible for manufacture in the cheesemaking courtyard, bringing fifty qintār of halloumi cheese to the partnership. Yeshu‘a is to be responsible for sales, remaining in the shop and investing 1,000 silver half-dirhems, to be brought by Yeshu‘a in payments according to a schedule (see lines 10-12). Raḍī is to keep accounts. Profits and losses are to be divided equally, including rent for both the shop and the courtyard. Line 13 refers to the trustworthiness of the partners, important in this case since the two partners will not be working side by side. (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture," 188)

Account of household expenses. In Judaeo-Arabic, Arabic script, and Greek/Coptic numerals. Meat, vegetables and produce (colocasia, sesame oil, coriander, pepper, date, chickpeas, hiera, radish), bath, bleaching of clothing (by the qaṣṣār, laundryman), and baking of bread. Mentions names such as al-ʿArīf; Fuḍayl; Abū l-ʿAlāʾ; Mufaḍḍal. (Information in part from Goitein’s index card).

Accounts in Judaeo-Arabic in a crude hand. Mentions several baked goods and associated items: bread (khubz), cake (kaʿk), raisins, taḥīna, qaṭāʾif.

Accounts or shopping list (or menu planning?). Not a medical recipe. In Judaeo-Arabic. There are three distinct sections; the first two are headed "First Night" and "Second Night." Listed in the first section: "one hen with me"; garlic; lemon; saffron; pepper; mastic. Listed in the second section: "one hen with me, and roasted in lemon"; thirty qadaḥ of rice; zirbāj (delicately sour golden stew) (this one is crossed out); okra (? באמה); garlic; coriander; firewood. Listed in the third section: apple and two kinds of cucumber (khiyār and faqqūs). (Information in part from CUDL.)

Letter fragment in Judaeo-Arabic. The same scribe probably wrote ENA NS 69.20 and T-S AS 156.42, based on the presence of the relatively uncommon blessing "min dār al-fanā' wa-l-shaqā' ilā dār al-naʿīm wa-l-baqā' (from the abode of perdition and woe to the abode of blessing and immortality)." In this letter he describes the diet of a group of people "during this calamity," mentioning specifically salted turnip (lift māliḥ) and lupine (turmus). He may be requesting a regimen or prescription or money.

Accounts in Arabic script and Greek/Coptic numerals. Grocery list? It lists a raṭl of sesame oil (sīraj/sayraj), 1/2 raṭl sumac, 1/2 raṭl tahina, a cupful of rice, eggs, a raṭl of linseed oil (zayt ḥār), and several more items. Another entry was added in lighter & thinner characters: 3 ounces of olive oil (zayt ṭayyib)

Accounts in Arabic script and Coptic numerals. Several items seem to be food (kuzbara, ḥummuṣ, zaʿtar).