Geniza Lab

Illuminated map, probably, of the graves of Talmudic sages.

Illuminated map of graves of biblical figures and Talmudic sages.

Kabbalistic illustration of a schematic face filled in with text. Four circles labeled left ear, left eye, right eye, right ear. Forehead above, peʾot to either side, nose, mouth, etc. Probably post-15th c.

Leaf from a magical treatise, including illustrations of Senoy, Sansenoy and Semangelof.

Fragment (left side) of a late illuminated ketubba.

Fragment (left side) of a late illuminated ketubba. The year appears to be 1842/3 CE. The groom is named Yaʿaqov. Signatories include Yaʿaqov [...] and Shelomo Eliyaqim.

Marriage contract. Dated: Ḥeshvan 5570 AM, which is 1809 CE. Elegantly decorated capitals, calligraphic script. Groom: Yosef b. Yehuda b. Shemuel. Bride: [...] bt. Yaʿaqov b. David ארביט. Currency: gurush. Merits further examination.

Engagement (shiddukhin) agreeement between Efrayim b. Shemuel and כואנדה bt. Eliyyahu Sūsī, in a beautifully illuminated frame. Currency: medin. Dated 1720 CE (1 Elul 5480), Fustat. Goitein notes and index card linked below belong to a different shelfmark. ASE.

Letter from Yosef קוכו and Shelomo Amarilio, in Salonica, to the judge Yiṣḥaq b. Ẓahal, presumably in Egypt. In Hebrew. Dated: 5480 AM (שנת אקים את סֿכֿתֿ דוד), which is 1719/20 CE. The writers heard that David Miranda (דוד מיראנדה) of Salonica recently died and that the addressee had taken custody of his estate. They inform the addressee that David left impoverished orphans, so they ask him to send the money with a trustworthy merchant of Salonica in the form of a polisa (פוליסה) as soon as possible. They have also heard that Avraham Barukh and a certain Sarsūr owed money to the deceased (the latter because he was selling garments (? רופאש) on commission/consignment for the deceased), so they ask the addressee to investigate. On verso there is a lovely illustration of two birds.

Marriage contract (ketubba). Location: New Cairo. Groom: Natan b. David. Bride: Sitt al-Sāda bt. ʿOvadya. One of the oldest and largest illuminated medieval ketubbot from the Geniza. Containing six layers of calligraphic borders of varying widths, including piyyutim in micrography; one thin border of gold outlined in blue; one wide border of gold calligraphy on a blue background; two arches of intersecting circles of micrography interspersed with red, blue, and gold shapes, and the monumental calligraphy of the poetic superscription in gold and blue. As a whole, this ketubbah appears to have been executed to the highest standards of medieval Levantine Jewish book art. Some portions of other decorated and illuminated ketubbot from this period have been preserved, but because of their fragmentary state they have not yet received extensive scholarly attention (see, for example, T-S 16.104, T-S 16.73, and T-S 24.17). Join by Noam Sienna, and information from Sienna, N. (2018). Reunited At Last: T-S K10.4 and Bodl. MS. Heb. c. 13/25. [Genizah Research Unit, Fragment of the Month, July 2018]. https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.34050. Note that Goitein treats Bodl. MS heb. c 13/25–26 and Bodl. MS heb. c 13/27–28 as if they are pieces of the same ketubba. This is possible but not certain, as the fragments are not continuous.

Beautiful calendar for the year 1815/16 CE (5576) with information about each month in a medallion set in a floral pattern.

Tabular calendar for the year 1815/16 CE (5576), probably connected to the previous shelfmark.

Ketubba, illuminated, from 1840/41 CE ([5]601), left half only.

Bottom part of an illuminated ketubba, probably 18th or 19th century.

Ketubba, illuminated, from Rashid, no earlier than 1740 CE (55[..]).

Letter from a physician named Menahem ha-kohen b. Sadoq from Aleppo including greetings from many men including his nephew Yahya ha-kohen b. Mevorakh the physician his son Sadoq who wrote the letter, his two grandsons Dosa and Elijah, from the elder Avraham b. Shemuʾel and his two sons Shemuʾel and Tamim - all these men populate the bet midrash of the great Rabbi Baruch b. Yiṣḥaq of Aleppo. Published in Miriam Frenkel, MA Thesis on Aleppo, p. 306-307. on the back a drawing of a cypress tree?

Pen trials, notes, and a drawing. In Persian and Judaeo-Persian. The least-faded text block reads in part, "I am the ẓaʿir Refa'el b. Ḥanuka(?). I wrote this. . . the month of Adar 5559 AM," which is 1799 CE.

Letter from Moshe b. Naʿim to his father Me'ir b. Naʿim. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dated: 3 Heshvan 5584 AM, which is 1823 CE. The letter is very long; needs examination for content. There is a lovely star design on verso.

Calendar. Late. Colorful floral illustrations, with the text in circular medallions. The surrounding fragments are either from the same calendar or very similar ones.

Mizraḥ. Illustrated with a vibrantly colored bouquet of flowers. Probably non-Geniza, like the neighboring shelfmarks.