Geniza Lab

Legal document. Record of release. In the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Location: Fustat. Dated: 1125 CE. This document describes release from a partnership in glasswork, explaining that Shemarya ha-Kohen (also known as Abū al-Wafā b. Menashshe ha-Kohen) demanded 9 and 1/6 dinars of his erstwhile partners Yiṣḥaq b. Yehuda and Yiṣḥaq's son Abū al-Karam. Yiṣḥaq gave Shemarya a settlement, andShemariah released him and his son from the partnership. The settlement of the partnership is effected through arbitration (“bederekh peshara”) by a number of “Elders of equity and propriety”. Per Goitein, Jewish courts of the Geniza period generally first sought settlements outside the court. Court decisions themselves not only required the attention of a higher court, such decisions also required an oath (a troublesome process for the court and the community). But a settlement through arbitration did not even require a qinyan. The judges in this case, Avraham b. Shemaʿya and Yiṣḥaq b. Shemuel ha-Sefaradi, are the two “permanent judges” of Fusṭāṭ of the period. (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture", 12-14)

Legal document. One of three copies (T-S 12.580 is another). Location: Fustat. Dated: Adar 1368 Seleucid, which is February/March 1057 CE. In which Ṭoviyya b. Sahl ha-Levi undertakes to work in a glass factory at the bellows for a period of one year for wages of 5 dirhams plus 1 dirham lunch. The factory belongs to ʿEli/ʿAllūn b. Shelomo ha-Kohen and Ṭoviyya/Ṭībān b. Yeshuʿa ha-Kohen. There is a fine of 5 dinars for violating the contract. Unsigned. There is a draft of another legal document on verso mentioning [...] b. Yefet ha-Kohen.

Letter fragment from Yosef to Abū l-Faḍl b. ʿAmrīṣ. In Judaeo-Arabic. Containing remarks about business transactions including the delivery of a consignment of glass.