Geniza Lab

Trial of the pen that reads among other things ḥadrat mawlaya al-šayḫ

Halakic discussions, draft. Written in different direction on the page. Late. in Hebrew

Seems to be another page of the former fragments. might be used to test the ink

Not clear. very little text remaining. also dots on the verso. Seems to be also from the same fragments. same type of late paper and hand

Literary. "In this section, tractate Shabbat 84 chapters and Eruvin 10 chapters and Zevaḥim. And the explanation of the difficult words in Zerʿim and Shabbat and. . . " Underneath, in very faded letters: "min. . . al-shaykh . . . "

Trial of the pen consisting of several basmala-s

Frontispiece of a book of Hebrew poetry and piyyutim, in the hand of Yedutun ha-Levi, with his signature inside of a medallion on the cover. On verso there are three poems, the first of which is by Shelomo Ibn Gabirol.

On one side there is a Shiviti amulet on striking pink paper. On the other side there is a clue to the original use of this paper, a stamp in Chinese: "輍〇盛記巖茶肆兩足重 = Yu [illegible] Sheng brand bohea tea, Four taels, full weight." Bohea is the traditional English term for tea produced in the Wuyi mountains (which are Bú-î-soaⁿ in Hokkien, hence the name). "Sheng" literally translated means "succeed" or flourish; in this context it is likely part of the brand name. The word translated to as "brand" 記 means "mark" and is traditionally translated to as "chop" in English. The tael 兩 is a traditional Chinese unit of measurement; a package of 4 taels would be about 160 grams of tea. Note that this fragment is unlikely to be from the Cairo Geniza, as this entire folder appears to be from a Persian or Central Asian milieu, where Elkan Nathan Adler made many acquisitions. (Information on the Chinese stamp kindly provided by Edward White; information on the Hebrew fragment and its likely provenance provided by Noam Sienna and Ofir Haim.)

Magical/medical recipes. In Judaeo-Arabic. Possibly in a Yemeni hand (the text on verso is in a different, clearly Yemeni hand). There are recipes for incense and ointments for banishing jinns from the insane. There is a recipe for preventing pregnancy.

Owner's note on a codex - the name is hasa[n?] b. Musa.

Magical symbols and Arabic script writing, traces only.

Recipes in Arabic script, probably medical (one is headed "for urinary retention"). Dating: Late, based on the hand and the paper. There follows a very peculiar table in which each box is headed with the phrase "the number of letters." Needs examination.

Table filled with Arabic script. The y-axis is days of the week and the x-axis is times of day. Each square of the grid has the name of a celestial body (sun, moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, etc.) There is further Arabic script below the table and on verso.

Tables for divination in Arabic script. Late.

Literary text(s) in Hebrew. In the margin, in Arabic script, a possible reference to a judge named Abū l-Barakāt: عند سيدنا القاضي الاجل ابي البركات

Many jottings of different kinds. The hand may belong to one of the well-known 12th-century Geniza scribes. Includes a section on ophthalmology mentioning the properties of "al-ʿinabiyya" (= the grape-like layer = the uvea).

Divination. In Judaeo-Arabic. Different responses to the client's query are tagged to different numbers.

Love spell in Judaeo-Arabic. For Esther bt. Nazlī to fall in love with Ḥayyim b. Barda. The hand looks late and possibly Iraqi—but that is speculative.

Medical prescription in Arabic script. Some phrases: 'manzūʿ al-ʿajam' (l-4), 'muṣaffā ʿalā'' (l-5), and fī niṣf mithqāl' (l-6). Diet: chicken. Verso is blank.

Recto: The first part is a description of a plant (ḥashīsha) that is effective against toothache. Its branches and leaves are like those of the eggplant plant; it has something on its branches that resembles a white mulberry but it is actually a fine thorn pod that latches on to anything it touches; indeed it cannot be touched due to its roughness; it has no fruit except for this white mulberry-like thorn. The second part is a wine recipe, translated by Goitein (Med. Soc. IV, p. 260): "Take two and a half dirhems' weight of each of the following: lichen (shayba), ginger, pepper, and barley flour, and half a dirhem of saffron. Mix all these together, pound them and bind the mixture with the same quantity [weight] of Egyptian bee honey and put it aside. Put two and a half dirhems' weight of this, together with one dirhem of colophony (qulfūniya or qalafūniya, a resin extracted from a pine tree or a terebinth), into each jar and plaster it over (wa-tulayyis). Leave it in the sun for seven days, after which it can be used. If you wish to have vinegar, put only one and a quarter of this stuff into each jar and leave it in the sun for eleven days. (Information in part from Ekaterina Pukhovaia.) ASE