Geniza Lab

Court record mentioning Daniel the Nasi and Hezekiah, Head of the Diaspora. (Information from Goitein's index cards)

Legal agreement between spouses on the question of a second wife. Written in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe ha-Levi. Location: Fustat. Dating: 1130–38 CE.

Bill of divorce. Husband: Mevasser b. Shelomo ha-Kohen. Wife: Kalla bt. Menashshe. Dated: Sunday, 3 Elul 1417 Seleucid, which is 1106 CE. Location: Minyat Zifta. The document remains unfinished and unsigned, and so this divorce was not completed. On verso there is a religious poem (rahaṭ), nineteen lines, by Yeḥezqel b. ʿEli ha-Kohen. (Information from CUDL and Goitein’s index card)

Fragments of bills of divorce. T-S 10J3 ff. 2-11. (Information from Goitein’s index card)

Bill of divorce, fragment. The husband's name is not preserved. Wife: Gharb bt. Abū l-M[...] Tamim b. Bishr. Scribed and signed by the court scribe Yosef b. Shemuel b. Seʿadya ha-Levi (c.1181–1209). Also witnessed by Yefet b. Shemuel the teacher. On verso there is a confirmation of receipt, with the same two witnesses. (Information in part from CUDL.)

Bill of divorce. Witnesses are […] b. Yūsuf and Yoseff b. Yeshuʿa. (Information from Goitein’s index card)

Bill of divorce between […] b. Yefet and […] bt. Ṭūviya. (Information from Goitein’s index card)

Part of a geṭ in which [...] divorces his wife, [...] (names not preserved). Dated 1[.]th Sivan [...]7 (= [...]6 CE). Witnessed by [...] b. ʿEli and [...] b. Yefet the teacher (ha-Melammed) ha-Levi. (Information from CUDL.)

Bill of divorce. Witnesses are Yaʿaqov b. Shemuel and Shelomo b. Yosef. (Information from Goitein’s index card)

Fragment of a geṭ. Husband: Name not preserved. Wife: Fakhr bt. Faḍāʾil the Maghrebī. Date not preserved. Witnessed by Menashshe b. Yosef and Mevorakh b. Natan he-Ḥaver (active 1150–81 CE). On verso, confirmation of receipt, witnessed by the same witnesses. (Information from CUDL.)

Bill of divorce, fragment. Husband: Maʿānī b. Khalaf. Wife: Jamīʿ bt. Barakāt (both families are from Minyat Ziftā, Egypt). Dated: Friday, 29 Sivan 1426 Seleucid, which is 1115 CE. Location and names of any witnesses are not preserved. See also nearby fragments T-S 10J3 ff. 2-11, fragments of bills of divorce. (Information from CUDL and Goitein’s index card)

Fragments of bills of divorce. T-S 10J3 ff. 2-11. (Information from Goitein’s index card)

Bill of divorce. Witnesses are Saʿīd b. Aharon and Binyamin b. Yaʿaqov. (Information from Goitein’s index card)

Secondary use: Fragment of three responsa written by Ibn Avraham Ibn Yiju, most probably in Yemen. Dating: ca. 1151 CE. Written on a reused letter (see PGPID 4719). (Information from India Book III; IB III, 34 = T-S 10J9.24v IB III, 35 = T-S 10J32.6.)

Legal document. In the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Dated: Adar I 1437 Seleucid, which is 1126 CE. Abū l-Munā al-ʿAṭṭār Yaʿaqov b. David ha-Parnas declares that he has received from Abū l-Munā Shelomo b. Ḥayyim the Seventh a sum of 57 dinars as an investment that he is free to use as he pleases in the drug/perfume trade for a period of one year. (Information from CUDL and Goitein's index card)

Legal query concerning a newlywed girl who is scared of her husband who has a convulsion every time they attempt sexual intercourse. She is begging for divorce. She is still a virgin, dealing with whether a geṭ is necessary or not and what to do with the dowry payments. (Information in part from CUDL)

Lease of land belonging to the Qodesh, ca. 1180. Written on the surviving upper part of a leaf, this is a draft of a deed leasing a parcel of land belonging to the qodesh to Avraham ha-Levi (B. Yahya) al-Najib (al-Watiq). The parcel (saha) is in Dammuh, near the synagogue. It had been dedicated to Yesha'yahu ha-Levi b. Misha'el (Maimonides' brother-in-law) who, in a previous document, was appointed general administrator of the qodesh. The lessee is granted the right to build on the land and also to cultivate it and operate the saqiya on it. The lease is for a period of 30 years, for 180 dirhams, i.e. six dirhams a year; it is apparently a small parcel. In 30 years, it will revert to the qodesh. The purpose of the deal, from the point of view of the qodesh, might have been the revival of the Dammuh area, to prevent it from falling into decay. This was a practice known in Egypt during many centuries, taken over by the Muslim administration from the Hellenistic-Roman-Byzantine emphyteusis, meaning lease for a symbolic price, and sometimes exeption from taxes, in order to revitalize abandoned land. (Information from Gil, Documents, pp. 319 #75)

Fragment of power of attorney signed by four persons including the judge Shemuel b. Saadya (in office 1165-1203) and deputy judge Jephthah b. Yaʿaqov (in office 1182-1219). Dated to the last quarter of 12th century. (Information from Goitein's index cards and Mediterranean Society, II, pp. 124, 546.) Looks like the hand of the court scribe Yosef b. Shemuel b. Seʿadya ha-Levi (c. 1181–1209).

Release given by Avraham b. Moshe al-Talmid to Banat b. Khalaf al-Baidayani and her daughter Durra bat Yeshua. Dated ca. 1030. (Information from Goitein's index cards)

Beginning of a deposition about the payment of debts in a transaction involving a pledge of four books. Drafted in Fustat in Shevat 1489/January 1178. (Information from Goitein's index cards and Mediterranean Society, I, pp. 259, 465)