Geniza Lab

Probably a medical prescription or a recipe in Arabic, mentioning hiera picra (a cathartic powder made of aloes and canella bark), chebulic myrobalan (iḥlīj Kābulī), lavender (isṭarkhūdus), sugar, and ghārīqūn (agaric).

Recto: Medical recipes. In Judaeo-Arabic. The first includes ingredients such as Indian salt, anise, and chicory water. The second (for headaches and for excessive moisture in the head and the eyes) includes ingredients such as sugar, Socotrine aloe, turpeth, and myrobalan. Verso: Story about al-Ma'mūn and ʿĪsā. In Judaeo-Arabic. The page opens with some medical language—so it is possible that the recipes on recto are part of this story.

Recipe against worms. In Hebrew. Late. Written in the margin of a literary text (commentary on Exodus).

Instructions for some sort of magical procedure. "Take seven pebbles, throw one in each of the four cardinal directions, and three will remain with you. Then recite the following verses sven times. . . ."

Several alchemical recipes written at all angles to each other.

Recipes in Arabic script, probably medical (one is headed "for urinary retention"). Dating: Late, based on the hand and the paper. There follows a very peculiar table in which each box is headed with the phrase "the number of letters." Needs examination.

Recto: The first part is a description of a plant (ḥashīsha) that is effective against toothache. Its branches and leaves are like those of the eggplant plant; it has something on its branches that resembles a white mulberry but it is actually a fine thorn pod that latches on to anything it touches; indeed it cannot be touched due to its roughness; it has no fruit except for this white mulberry-like thorn. The second part is a wine recipe, translated by Goitein (Med. Soc. IV, p. 260): "Take two and a half dirhems' weight of each of the following: lichen (shayba), ginger, pepper, and barley flour, and half a dirhem of saffron. Mix all these together, pound them and bind the mixture with the same quantity [weight] of Egyptian bee honey and put it aside. Put two and a half dirhems' weight of this, together with one dirhem of colophony (qulfūniya or qalafūniya, a resin extracted from a pine tree or a terebinth), into each jar and plaster it over (wa-tulayyis). Leave it in the sun for seven days, after which it can be used. If you wish to have vinegar, put only one and a quarter of this stuff into each jar and leave it in the sun for eleven days. (Information in part from Ekaterina Pukhovaia.) ASE

Recipe or instructions in Arabic script. Likely alchemical. Mentions lead (three lines from the bottom) and "it becomes elixir" (iksīr) in the next line. On verso there are Arabic letters accompanied by their numerical values.

Medical recipe in a beautiful hand, from a literary text. Mentions antidote (tiryāq) and wheat flour (daqīq al-ḥinṭa).

Palimpsest. The earlier text is extremely faded; it is in Judaeo-Arabic and at least partially deals with recipes or prescriptions. The later text is also Judaeo-Arabic, in a late hand. It is an elaborate recipe/prescription followed by a magical invocation ("I bind you, O Maymūn. . . Ehyeh bar Ehyeh. . .") ASE.

Recipe in Judaeo-Arabic involving iron, sal ammoniac, cotton, silver, and other items. Alchemical?

Recipes in Judaeo-Arabic. Probably alchemical, but possibly medical. Magnesia (מגניסיא) is mentioned. This is not a legal document related to business, as it is listed on FGP.

Medical prescriptions against bleeding, [urin]ary incontinence, melancholia, arthritis, infertility. . . . and for sleeping with whomever one wants to (all it takes is a crocodile fang).

Recto: Recipe in Judaeo-Arabic that begins with taking a new white jug and perforating it. Verso: One line in Judaeo-Arabic, perhaps from an account: 3/4 of [...] of wax/candles.

Prescriptions or recipes in Judaeo-Arabic and Aramaic. "Instructions, mostly in Judeo-Arabic for preparations of different remedies. In the margin of the recto are instructions for extracting duck fat, written in a smaller hand. The last two items on the verso are in Aramaic, for killing spirits and for a woman whose sons has died." Information from Penn catalog.

Recipe for a beverage(?) in Judaeo-Arabic.

One side: A prayer in Hebrew (each phrase begins תתברך) in the hand of Nāṣir al-Adīb al-ʿIbrī. The other side: Judaeo-Arabic poetry, also in Nāṣir's hand. This is followed by a recipe of some sort, possibly (but not necessarily) medical. It involves linseed oil, drying something in the sun for 4 days, the seeds of a green watermelon, something being washed, then placing something in the sun for 7 days.

Recipe(s) in Judaeo-Arabic. Uses coriander; caraway; cinnamon; mastic; saffron; zaʿtar; cumin; anise; sesame; hemp / cannabis seed (qinnab); raisins; cloves; and walnuts(?).

Main text: Literary work in Arabic script, mentioning Aristotle and the third clime. Margins: Recipe in Judaeo-Arabic. Join (noncontinuous) by Alan Elbaum.

Recipe of some kind, very faded. Legible phrases include "al-zūfā wa-l-sunbul"—the hyssop and the spikenard (? Would depend on the next word, now missing); "lubb fustuq"—pistachio kernel; "yusḥaq wa-yunkhal wa-yuʿjan"—crush it and strain it and knead it; "wa-yuʿjan thāniyatan"—knead it again; "ṣamgh ʿarabī"—gum arabic. ASE.