Geniza Lab

Legal record (one large piece and 5 smaller pieces) mentioning the wali and signed by Ya'aqov b. Natan.

Legal document. Partnership agreement. Location: Bilbays. Dated: January 1209. This document is a partnership agreement in a perfume- and dye-manufacturing shop. The partners, Faḍā’il b. Abū al-Ḥasan and Manṣūr b. Abū Sa‘īd, contribute a total of 700 dirhams (200 and 500 dirhams respectively). The document doesn't use the formal terms shirka or mu‘āmala to describe their relationship, but the parties attest to "having partnered" in the shop. Both partners seem to work in the operation, profits and losses are generally to be split equally, and weekly maintenance is specified for each party. Manṣūr seems to be the senior partner; he brings more assets to the partnership, and the facility itself may belong to him, as he is allocated 4 dirhams of rent for the shop each month. However, income from the sale of scent sachets was allocated to Faḍā’il, who may have produced these alone without Manṣūr's assistance. Written and signed by Yehuda b. Tuvyahu he-Ḥaver ha-Kohen, Meshullam b. Mevorakh and Berakhot b. Elazar ha-Ḥazzan. (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture", 73-74) The verso is a bifolium of a bible.

Probably a partnership agreement. Entirely in Hebrew. Phrases: ולסחור בממו[נו]... בדרך כל הסוחרים הכשרים...

Draft of a contract for a 2-year partnership in a drug store (dukkān al-ʿiṭr). Faded. Names: [...] ha-Kohen; Abū Yaʿaqov ha-Ḥazzan; [...] b. Abū Munā(?). Handwriting of Hillel b. ʿEli?

Resposum in Aramaic, tiny fragment

Marriage document. Small fragment from a ketubba. All we have are the usual stipulations found in marriage contracts. Part of the bride’s name has survived: [...]טר, so her name was probably סת אלנטר (Sitt al-Naẓar) Dating: Possibly 13th–14th century. AA

Court record(s). Recto mentions [Yi?]sraʾel known as Ibn Efrayim, traveling on business, a paternal uncle, and coming in to Fustat (or Egypt). Likely concerning a partnership. Verso has a name (the scribe?) at the bottom: Menaḥem b. [...].

Responsum in the hand of Yosef rosh ha-seder? Very torn.

Legal fragment of some kind. Perhaps from a court notebook. There are signatures at the top, two lines in Aramaic, then a section with several names (Natan... Rabbi Efrayim... [...] b. Musāfir...)

Fragment of a legal document in Arabic script. There is a damaged date in the top line (Dhū l-Ḥijja 4[..] AH, corresponding to the range 1010–1106 CE. On verso there is Hebrew literary text.

Legal document written in careful square letters.

Fragment of a legal document in Judaeo-Arabic. Involves Moshe the cantor, Shelomo, a wālī, and "the father and his mother." The word קתל (kill/be killed) appears.

Legal document in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. year 1131/2 (?). Very hard to read. On the back of some literary text

Power of attorney written by Hillel b. Eli. Names: Imran. Ḥalfon, Abu Ali

Legal document. Small fragment from a legal document, probably a bill of release. An amount of 9 dinars is mentioned. Location: Fustat. Signed by Maṣliaḥ b. Shemuel (also signed Bodl. MS heb. b 3/11, an 11th century ketubba) and Shelomo b. Seʿadya (also signed T-S 8J4.2b, from 1026 CE). This document might have been written by the same scribe, Yefet b. David the Cantor. See אלינער ברקת, פנקסים של בית דין הירושלמיים מן הגניזה במחצית הראשונה של המאה האחת-עשרה, HUCA, 69 [1998], p. 13–18 [Hebrew section]). AA

Legal document. Only portions of the last few lines are preserved. Location: Fustat. Signed: Yosef b. Menashshe. Apparently written by Avraham b. Nathan Av (compare with T-S 8J12.1, on which he signed). Judeo-Arabic, Hebrew. Aramaic. AA

Deathbed declaration in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe, right upper corner. An old widow who had given her maidservant half of a house and the rest of her belongings asks her to renounce one eight of the share in the house, which she wishes to give to her sister's daughter, Najiya. (Information from Mediterranean Society, V, pp. 134, 442)

Legal agreement (FGP). Or letter. In Hebrew and Judaeo-Arabic. Opens with a string of titles very similar to those given to the Nagid Moshe b. Mevorakh in T-S 24.55. Then goes into the case of the youth Abū l-Ḥasan and 35 dinars.

Legal document. In Judaeo-Arabic. Release, probably. Mentions a woman [...] bt. ʿEli ha-Zaqen; someone declaring that he has received the full sum from her; then the royal something in al-Qāhira al-Muʿizziya; then a house and the man's brother Abū Isḥāq.

.Marriage document. Minute fragment, damaged and creased from a ketubah. Only a few words from the dowry list are preserved. Judeo-Arabic. AA. Needs preservation.