Geniza Lab

Letter in Ladino. Lines 14-15 mention one Shelomo Azulay as the recipient of another letter: "que venga un [sic] carta que mando al aḥīnu Shelomo Azulay." The usage of "aḥīnu" ("our brother" in Hebrew) could indicate familial ties with the sender and recipient yet must also be considered alternatively as a possible term of endearment in non-familial ties of friendship. MCD. Verso has been reused for various jottings, including excerpts from prayers, writing practice, and geomancy markings, some labeled with names of months.

26 pages of a Ladino & Hebrew manual on divination, using astrology and geomancy and perhaps some casting of lots (see pp. 21–22, where there is a calendrical table that the soothsayer can use to determine when the event will come to pass).

Recto: Love spells in Judaeo-Arabic and Hebrew. Verso: An Aramaic prayer and geomancy markings.

Bifolium from a treatise on geomancy.

Recto: late letter in Hebrew by Yehuda Leib Efendi to a respected person. Some geomancy markings at bottom left. Verso: Astrological diagram.

Two letters, one in Ladino and one in Judaeo-Arabic. The remainder of the pages are filled with sums, accounts, a couple Arabic signatures, and geomancy markings. ASE.

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

Table of contents for an eclectic literary work in Hebrew, perhaps on divination with stones? Not typical geomancy, as the patterns consist solely of arrangements of dots without lines.

Fragment containing some geomancy markings.

Recto: Some sort of incantation invoking God's power and entities such as Metatron. In Judaeo-Arabic. Late. Verso: Geomancy.

Geomancy.

Recto: Names of planets in Judaeo-Arabic, scribbled out. Verso: Geomancy markings.

Recto: Geomancy castings. May be related to AIU VII.F.32. Includes two questions about the illness of David b. Esther: Is it earthly or from God? And what medicines will help him? Verso: Astronomical tables depending on Zacut's tables of 1513 described in Goldstein, B.R. and J. Chabás, '"ransmission of computational methods within the Alfonsine corpus: the case of the tables of Nicholaus de Heybech," Journal for the History of Astronomy 39 (2008), pp. 345-55, esp. pp. 354-5 (described). 34 lines. Times of true opposition (full-moon) for each month in the year 1796-97 computed (date expressed as 557). Abraham Zacut (1452-1515) credited on line 1 for the method of determining true oppositions. Information from JRL online catalogue.

Recto: Engagement (shiddukhin) document, dated 18 June 1795 (1 Tammuz 5555), for Moshe b. [left blank] and Sara bt. David Russo. Verso: A geomancy casting; the question is crossed out but may be legible ("Is . . . good for me or not?")

Literary. Guide to geomancy in Judaeo-Arabic.

Account in Judaeo-Arabic and Arabic script. Mentioning an 'Istanbuli' good. There are also several geomancy castings.

Recto: geomantic designs consisting of series of horizontal dashes organised in groups of 4 lines each and laid out in two columns. At the end of the second column there are four lines in Ladino mentioning a Sabbatical year. Verso: jottings, including the name Abram. Information from CUDL.