Geniza Lab

Recto: Letter in Arabic script. Calligraphic (chancery?) hand, but no wide space between the lines. 6 lines from the middle of the letter are preserved. The sender urges the addressee to look after his friend/colleague Sulaymān the khawlī (variously translated as intendant, gardener, overseer, irrigation expert). If Sulaymān wishes to go down to al-Kawm al-Aḥmar ("the red mound," a pharaonic site in Upper Egypt), then the addressee should assist him and make sure that he is honored. Whatever crops (ghulla) he asks for should be given to him.

Recto: State document. Accounts regarding agrarian administration submitted by Boqṭor b. Sisinne, a Copt, the overseer (al-khawlī) in Badsā (in the province of al-Giza), for the year 401 kharājī (= 1011/12 CE) and the following year, detailing the amount of produce (ghalla) paid as karaji, the amount of produce remaining in the hands of the cultivators, the amount of seed-advance (taqāwī) used, what was given in by Imāʿīl b. al-Qāsim al-Jaʿfarī and what was transferred to the surveyor (al-dalīl) ʿAbdallāh b. Malik. On verso there is a Hebrew liturgical text. Information from Khan via GRU catalog via FGP.

Letter in Judaeo-Arabic. All four fragments likely belong to the same letter. T-S AS 207.180 + T-S AS 207.198 is almost a direct join, and T-S AS 207.179 + T-S AS 207.17 is definitely a direct join; the first pair does not seem to directly join with the second pair. In the first pair of fragments, after the standard opening greetings, the sender reports that (s)he ran into [Yaʿ?]qūb al-Kohen al-[...] al-Khawlī (=agricultural overseer) and asked after the addressees' news. Then (s)he met with Masʿūd the Parnas and asked after them. This is followed by a fragmentary reference to "the siege of the city" (al-ḥiṣār ʿalā l-balad); "you are in Fustat every day"; and instructions about sending letters. The second pair of fragments transitions into standard closing greetings, including from "my mother" to "her/your mother and her brothers and sisters." The sender has learned that the addressees are sick, probably an ocular complaint, because (s)he next mentions a sack (ṭillīs), 3/4 of a raṭl, and "within it is an ophthalmic" (ashyāf), and "there is benefit in it, for people were preoccupied with the diseases..." Joins by Amir Ashur. AA. ASE.