Geniza Lab

Legal letter. Written on parchment (14 lines). In the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. He reports that he has come up with a good idea to resolve a documentation dilemma, namely that before something is deleted in a certain document as he had previously agreed with the addressee, the witnesses should be summoned again and a new qinyan should be made, so that they cannot complain after the fact that they never signed the document in its ultimate form and that it has been "falsified" or "forged" (muzawwar, line 9). (Information from Goitein's index card, MR, and Oded Zinger's forthcoming edition.)

Informal note addressed to a judge. In the hand of Hillel b. ʿEli (active 1066–1108). In Judaeo-Arabic. A woman came to Hillel with a bill of divorce (here called "baraʾa," release) supposedly written in the hand of the addressee, but he suspects that it is a forgery, because the addressee, the purported scribe, does not habitually date his documents with the Seleucid calendar. Furthermore, the verso of the bill of divorce does not contain the required statement that it was delivered to the woman. The addressee is asked to look into this (al-naẓar fīhā). The women's husband is missing (maʿdūm). (Information from Oded Zinger's forthcoming edition.)