Geniza Lab

Magical recipes in Judaeo-Arabic (with some Arabic script and magical symbols). One recipe is for nosebleed and involves writing a spell with the blood on the forehead.

Magical recipes to release someone from prison, heal a sick person, make a barren woman pregnant, etc. Information from Gideon Bohak via FGP.

Magic. "Hekh-type names דבצביב הוא יהו יהוה הֹגֹ גבגביב... עמעמירון... לפלפירון וכו." Information from FGP.

Magic. "Hekh-type names דבצביב הוא יהו יהוה הֹגֹ גבגביב... עמעמירון... לפלפירון וכו." Information from FGP.

Ownership page of a bible (muṣḥaf). Listing several successive owners.

Magic. In Aramaic. "Adjuration to open a door (תרעא), lock (קופל...סוגר). A ref. to יעמדו על הר הזיתים." Information from FGP.

Possibly a dedication or ownership page from a book. "Written in the name of the youth . . . ha-Levi ha-Yaqar the noble groom . . . Avraham b. Yiṣḥaq al-ʿŪdī. There are decorations, and the whole fragment is in a mixture of red and black ink.

Dream interpretation

Alchemical instructions in Judaeo-Arabic (mentioning e.g. "restoring the spirit to جسد المغنيسيا") in the margins of an Arabic (philosophical?) treatise.

Talmudic text with a colophon and a later note. The colophon indicates that the copy was completed in Jerusalem in 4832 AM, which is 1071/72 CE. The note says, "I redeemed it from the plunder in the island of Rhodes, I, Eliyyahu."

Literary texts with a note by Natan Av Bet Din labeling something as a drash that was completed and corrected in Jerusalem, in the year 4803 AM, which is 1042/43 CE.

Goralot (Lots)

Summary of the extraction and medicinal uses of myrrh gum (from "a type of tree in Yemen"). In Judaeo-Arabic.

Recto: Memorandum in Arabic script, with a learned disquisition on the meaning of the term "ṭabīʿa" in the works of Hippocrates. Names several specific medical treatises. Unclear if this is related to verso, which is a medical prescription, mentioning chebulic myrobalan, white agaric, turpeth and Chinese rhubarb. (Information in part from FGP.)

Literary text on Jewish law. There is an ownership note: "this muṣḥaf belongs to Farajallāh [...]."

Contains Piyyut, calendar calculations and some Arabic text- needs examination.

Calendar for years 4756–4757 of the Era of Creation (= 995-996 to 996-997 CE) and 4760-4761 of the Era of Creation (= 999-1000 to 1000-1001 CE). The calendar includes information on the length of the variable months and intercalation, on moladot of all months, on days of the week of beginnings of months, festivals and fasts, and on the time of tequfot. The calendar also mentions that the tequfa of Nisan 4761 of the Era of Creation (= 1000-1001 CE) is the beginning of a new 28-year cycle of tequfot. (CUDL)

Recto: calendrical text discussing the months of Marḥešvan and Kislev. Verso: jottings.

A brief narrative of the calendar controversy of 921/2 appears within a treatise or manual in Judaeo-Arabic on the Jewish calendar, which was composed and written only a few decades after the controversy. The author is unknown, but appears to be an outsider and might even have been non-Jewish. One bi-folio of this manual has been preserved, T-S NS 98.47. The purpose of this manual is to provide essential guidance on how the rabbinic calendar is constructed. The calendrical data in the manual relate to ‘cycle 249’, a 19-year period beginning in 954/5CE.

Calendrical information for the 19-year cycle 259 (beginning in 1142 CE) and 261 (beginning in 1180 CE). Jottings in Hebrew and Arabic script. Jottings in Arabic include a date copied several times, 1419 (= 1096-7 CE) or 1417 (1094-5 CE). (Information from CUDL)