Geniza Lab

Recipe in Arabic script, probably medical or culinary.

Printed page from the beginning of "Introduzione alla grammatica del Puoti" (1865). With inky fingerprints and writing exercises in Judaeo-Arabic and Arabic script written over it.

Recipes in Arabic script. Verso (see separate record) contains a table giving the correspondences between Greek/Coptic numerals and letters of the Arabic alphabet.

Jottings in Arabic script and mysterious symbols (geomancy?).

Recipe or prescription. In Arabic script. Mentions the names of several foods. Needs examination.

Medical recipes in Arabic script.

Medical prescription. In Arabic script. 1 mithqāl of hiera picra; the same of anise; fennel (rāziyānaj); and the rest is more difficult to decipher. Ends with "and let it be used. Beneficial if God wills." On verso jottings in Judaeo-Arabic and part of an Arabic basmala.

Medical recipes or prescriptions, probably. In Arabic script. Needs examination.

Magical spells, probably, in Arabic script. The name of the target is left blank: fulān b. fulāna. Needs further examination.

Formulary for a magical spell. Small fragment.

Colophon to Kitāb Khalq al-Insān by Abū l-Ḥasan Saʿīd ibn Hibat Allāh (1045–1101). In Judaeo-Arabic. This copy was completed 7 Shevat 4883 AM, which is January 1123 CE. The next lines of the colophon name (the patron?) al-Rayyis Abū Manṣūr Ṣāliḥ Ra's al-Mathība al-Hārūnī (=a Kohen?) b. [Su]laymān Ra's al-Mathība al-Hārūnī - which, according to the titles, name, nasab and date can fit the gaon Maṣliaḥ b. Solomon. On the author of the original text: Saʿīd b. Hibat Allāh was a "Nestorian Christian court physician to the ’Abbāsid caliphs al-Muqtadī (ruled 467-487 AH/1075-1094 CE) and al-Mustaẓhir (ruled 487-512 AH/1094-1118 CE) and physician at the ’Aḍudī hospital in Baghdad. This treatise on the generation and development of human beings from conception to death is in fifty chapters." (Information from Bodleian catalog, description of MS. Pococke 66.)

Magical fragment, probably. In Judaeo-Arabic and Aramaic.

Poem of praise addressed to Yefet ha-Kohen. In Hebrew. Perhaps the introduction to a letter.

Colophon. "I copied this, Yosef Rosh ha-Seder b. Yaʿaqov Rosh Bei Rabanan (ZL), from the copy of the author (ZL), for myself, and I did not add to it except the text ... light...."

Prayer for Queen Victoria, Albert, and Edward Prince of Wales. Calligraphic, multicolored, in the shape of an orb, and written in both Hebrew and English. Almost certainly from Gaster's personal collection rather than the Cairo Geniza. There are four other blocks of text from various parts on the other quadrants (to be folded into a siddur?).

Recipes in Judaeo-Arabic. Alchemical: dhahab kāmil in shā' allāh.

Two or three amulets containing remarkable illustrations: a demon with a tail, tutu, scepter, horns, and curly hair; a seated woman; and a man being swallowed by a fish. The text surrounding the images is mainly in Hebrew, but there is also Arabic script and possibly some Judaeo-Persian. Gaster acquired these items from Tehran via Alfandary Bros., Oriental Merchants, April 1914 CE; this shelfmark also contains Gaster's provenance notes and the original letter he received from M. Alfandary accompanying the shipment.

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

Amulets/blessings for newborns. Printed.

Recipes. In Hebrew. A mixture of magical spells, many medical, combined with domestic advice, e.g., how to remove urine stains. This fragment may be older than all the other ones in this folder.