Geniza Lab

Epistle of R. Sherira Gaon. see PGPID 23194

A transliterated Latin prayer (borrowed from a Christian thief-catching ordeal), an Arabic version of a gnostic saying of Secundus the Silent Philosopher, a Hebrew praise of God, an Aramaic recipe for path-jumping and the beginning of an Aramaic recipe (for revelation?) to be performed before the Torah-ark (קדם ארונא) of the synagogue. Information from GRU catalog via FGP and Bohak, "Catching a Thief," (2006).

Amulet to protect Maṣliaḥ ha-Kohen gaʾon b. Shelomo gaʾon (1127–39 CE), destroy his political enemies, and succeed before the government. (Information from CUDL)

Verso and bottom of recto: Amulet(s) for Makārim b. Nujūm to give him charm and grace and to silence his enemies. (Information from CUDL.)

Leaf 1: end of a discussion of the cycles of each planet and their astrological importance, followed by a description of each of the planets. Leaf 2: end of a discussion of the influence of the zodiac signs on people born in them, followed by calendrical-astrological discussions, a discussion of the planets and their servants (בול, סין, אריס, כון, בילתיי, etc) and their influence on people born in them, and a horologion with angelic names. (Information from CUDL)

Magical recipes for attaining love. "The first among these magical recipes is intended to ensure a great affection between a wife and her husband, erasing any animosity that might exist between them. The fragment preserves some beautiful biblical analogies.... The second recipe preserved in our fragment bears the title ‘Love’, emphasised by the drawing of a canopy over the word. It instructs the practitioner to take ‘seven leaves of laurel and grind them in old wine’, after which he is to write several magical names, perhaps using the mixture prepared earlier, or else, to write the names on the laurel leaves. The recipe ends with another biblical quotation, this time from the Song of Songs 8:7." Saar, O. (2010). T-S K12.89: ‘Like Esther in front of Ahasuerus’. [Genizah Research Unit, Fragment of the Month, July 2010]. https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.55274

Draft of instructions to write signature on legal document. Late

P1: f. 1r: description of a dream dated 525 AH (= 1130 CE); f. 1v: alchemical recipe called ‘the operation of mixture’; f. 2r: invocation to God. P2: f. 1r: alchemical recipe (continues from P1 f. 1v); f. 1v: calendar in which the Hebrew months of Sivan and Tammuz are mentioned; f. 2v: invocation to God and separate letters. P3: leaf 1: magical words and description of their use, with a mention of the city of Damascus; calendar mentioning Jewish festivals (Passover, Ḥanukka). P4: f. 1r: sequence of letters arranged according to the abrade; f. 1v: on the substitution of letters in words according to the Kabbalah; P4 leaf 2: calendar with mention of Hebrew festivals (continues from P3, leaf 1). P5: f. 1r: very damaged, only a few letters legible; f. 1v: list of some of the months of the Jewish calendar; f. 2r: description of movements of the sun (first 8 lines) and list of some months of the Jewish calendar; f. 2v: badly rubbed. P6: f. 1r: description of celestial phenomena; ff. 1v, leaf 2: on the reckoning of the days of the festival with mention of the leap year. P7: ff. 1r-2v: mention of a musical instrument in Arabic and Hebrew; f. 2r: mention of Rabban Gamaliel and reckoning for the rising of the New Moon. P8: unidentified Hebrew text. P9 recto: alchemical recipe involving the use of vitriol; verso: Arabic (separate letters and words and unidentified partial text). (Information from CUDL)

Description of disasters, famines and frightful events due to happen in each of the Jewish months, mentioning the Jews and their slavery, the Arabs and their need for food, and the River Nile and its drought. (Information from CUDL)

Predictions of events that will happen if the tequfot of Tishri and Nisan occur in particular hours of the day or night, in the form ‘if the tequfa happens on the first hour of the night, a murder will take place among the people [...] and the doors of the wealthy will be closed’. Mentions the angel Yaqfiʾel. (Information from CUDL)

Placard of a Spanish pilgrim to Jerusalem "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither [Psalms 137:5]. [I am] Avraham b. Yehuda—m[ay he rest in] E[den], the Spaniard, from the town of Jayyān [today Jaén] called al-Ṣarrāf [the Banker]. May God, for the sake of his name, let me arrive in Jerusalem, the Holy City—may it be rebuilt and established during the lifetime of all Israel—and let me become one of its inhabitants. May this be His will. Amen, in eternity, Selah. Written. . . . [Here, probably the date of the pilgrim's departure from his hometown was given.]" (Information and translation from Goitein, Med Soc V, p. 401.)

Public prayer (mi sheberakh) for a representative of the merchants ("neʾeman ha-soḥarim") named Moshe ha-Kohen in gratitude for his works of charity on behalf of the poor, scholars, synagogues, and yeshivas. The prayer is entirely in Hebrew and mostly formulaic until the final line where a custom wish in Judaeo-Arabic was added after "may God grant all his wishes": that Moshe be reunited with Abū Naṣr his sister's son. (Information in part from Goitein's index card.) ASE

Magical spell in Hebrew, written in a cipher. Khatun the daughter of Qatzur adjures the jinn in her house to tell her where the gold coins are hidden. Similar ciphers may be found in T-S K5.7, T-S Misc.10.60, T-S Misc.11.91, T-S Misc.22.218, T-S K24.23, and ENA 3211.1–2 Information from Gideon Bohak, “Cracking the Code and Finding the Gold: A Dream Request from the Cairo Genizah,” in Juan Antonio Álvarez-Pedrosa Núñez and Sofía Torallas Tovar, eds., Edición de Textos Mágicos de la Antigüedad y de la Edad Media (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 2010), 9-23.

Bilingual hymn in Greek and (Bohairic?) Coptic, modified to serve as healing text (recto). On verso there are a few lines of illegible (Coptic?) text. Some phrases: λύχνος της αληθείας; ⲕⲉ ⲇⲏⲕⲉⲟⲥ (for καὶ δίκαιος); ⲓⲉⲣⲁⲣⲭⲁ (= ἱεράρχης); μεγηστοσ θ[εο]υ κε [λοτε??] [λυχηος??] της αληθηασ κε δηκειοσ ωσ ηωβ ιεραρχα (=Greatest one of God and [..?] the truth and righteous, like Job the hierarch); ⲑⲉⲣⲁⲡⲉⲩⲥⲏⲥ ⲡⲁⲥⲁⲛ Θεραπευσης p-a-san (= "May you heal my brother”). Information from Matthew Boutilier, Peter Toth, Doug Henning, and https://www.coptic-magic.phil.uni-wuerzburg.de/index.php/manuscript/kyp-m736/.

Aggressive and erotic magical spells. Formulary. In Judaeo-Arabic, written in part with a cipher. Information from FGP

Magical fragment, perhaps. Unidentified alphabet or cipher.

Recto: three recipes of folk remedies in Ladino, integrating magical elements. The ingredients include turpentine and organic foodstuffs like sardines. Drawn at the bottom of recto are magical characters, the Tetragrammaton, pentagrams and the name of the angel Sama’el. Verso: scribal exercise with formulae for book endings, in which the scribe makes his writing-implement talk in the first person. Information from CUDL.

Medical recipes for dental hygiene. Medical text regarding the importation and trade of miswāk sticks to be used as toothbrushes, of honey, ginger, pepper, zatar (wild oregano) and other spices that are related to the treatment of mouth and tooth. The text preserves some indication for the preparation of the aforementioned ingredients, including their baking; other instructions deal with the dipping of the miswāk in a medical preparation. Mention is made of glass from Syria and of Salt Andarānī, which is believed to be the same as the salt of Sodom mentioned in the Talmud and to derive from the Syrian town of Andara. Information from CUDL.

Recipe (nuskha murakkab) in Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: Perhaps 12th century. Probably for ink, based on the ingredients and instructions and the phrase "ilā an yasīr fī qawām al-[ḥi]br" (third line from the bottom). Ingredients include oak galls (ʿafṣ), gum arabic (samgh ʿarabī), Cypriot vitriol (zāj qubrusī, misspelled קרבסי in the document), an unknown ingredient in a lacuna, a bit of saffron, a bit of rock salt (milḥ darānī, also known as andarānī), lapis lazuli (lazuward). The ingredients are soaked in water; some green myrtle (or myrrh, if myrtle is unavailable) is also involved; and there is also a stage of leaving it out in the sun. At the end of the process, you sprinkle it with a bit of sugar candy (sukkar nabāt) or sugar syrup (jullāb). ASE

Ownership note: "This daftar belongs to Ḥasan ha-Zaqen the shaliaḥ of our master David ha-Nasi" the exilarch.