Geniza Lab

Letter from Yeshuʿa b. Ismaʿīl al-Makhmūrī (Alexandria) to Nahray b. Nissim. Dating: ca. 1060. The writer is interested in buying tin because it is in demand among traders from Palestine. The letter contains some personal details about Yeshuʿa b. Ismaʿīl al-Makhmūrī, who became widowed and was alone for a long time before getting married again to a sister of ʿEzra b. Hillel. He has also been suffering from an illness that affected his hip (wark). Those who visited him 'frightened' him (by despairing of his health). He is doing somewhat better than before and asks for Nahray's prayers. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 3, p. 18. See Goitein notes linked below.) ASE.

Accounts in the hand of Nissim b. Ḥalfon, presented to Nahray b. Nissim; 1066 CE. Lists payments for various goods, made either directly or through others, and gives details of various shipments, some of them to Tripoli, Libya. Mentions skins, textiles, beads, sugar, red wood, ammonia, furs, lead, baked goods, wine, meat, camphor, wax, tin, cloves, pearls and laque. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 3, p. 986.)

Late letter that begins in Hebrew and transitions into Judaeo-Arabic from an unidentified merchant to Yosef Muḥibb. He writes that he traveled this year to Tripoli (Libya?) to look for a Jew who took 100 peraḥim from him and fled to Venice. He was not successful. He has purchased garments and sent them with Saadya Kohen and Yaʿaqov b. Hīnī (also mentioned in ENA NS 50.25) to try to sell. Recto is damaged, but deals almost entirely with business matters. He mentions R. Yosef Nahon (?) who died after a year of being bedridden and consuming half of his wealth. In his will, he left 200 peraḥim for the study of Torah and for the visiting of the ill and for the poor. The writer also mentions the addressee's brother Khubayr, his own nephew Yosef, and Shelomo Abulafia. The addressee's sister Maḥbūba sends her regards and urges him to take care of their other sister and find a husband for her. On verso he returns to business matters and requests a Cypriot commodity (קוברסי/קוברסיין) and orders tin (קזדיר) from a place called גמאע אלטיילון. He mentions Yaʿaqov Bū Saʿda and David al-Ashqar. ASE.

Letter from Natan b. Nahray, the uncle of Nahray b. Nissim, in Alexandria, to Nahray's son, Abū Saʿd Nissim b. Nahray, in Fustat, ca. 1066. The letter relates many commercial matters and mentions Avraham al-Derʿi as Natan's commercial competitor in coral trade. From Nahray's title and from the fact that Nissim is already grown up and involved in trade, one can conclude that the letter was written in the late nineties of the 11th century. Doc. #43 in Nahray's archive. Mentions various goods: silk, clothes, pearls, lapiz lazuli and tin (Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 3, p. 439).

List of goods and prices. Likely a household inventory, but could also be business accounts or a dowry list. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: Ottoman-era. Curencies: gurush (קרוש) and mathaqil (מיטאקיל). The items are mostly vessels, ceramics, and household items (e.g. ṭarārīḥ). One item seems to be "a Chinese Iznik dish," maybe Iznik porcelain on a Chinese pattern. (See mediakron.bc.edu/ottomans/iznik-dish-2.) There are also "Chinese coffee cups (fanājīn)." (ASE) Presumably those coffee cups are also porcelain. Paleographically, datable to the 16th or 17th century, which was also the period of Iznik porcelain. (MR)

A letter from Faraḥ b. Ismaʿīl, probably in Alexandria, to Nahray b. Nissim, Fustat, 5 June 1056. Deals mainly with financial matters, mentions bills of exchange, a letter sent to Ibn al-Baʿbāʿ, and sending a pouch containing 83 1/2 dinars as cash. Also talks about a sale of tin and reports the arrival of a ship from Palermo with worthless goods. (Information from Gil)

Business letter from Nissim b. Ḥalfon b. Benaya (Alexandria) to Nahray b. Nissim (Fustat), ca. 1050. Nissim b. Ḥalfon left two money poaches in Tinnīs, to be sent to Fustat. He asks Nahray b. Nissim to pass on to Tinnīs a letter enveloped in the present letter, and to pass on to him any letters that may have arrived for him from Tinnīs. Nissim b. Ḥalfon, together with his partner Abū Saʿīd b. al-Tahirtī, sent two loads of tin and he asks Nahray b. Nissim to supervise their sale. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 3, p. 956.)