Most Genizah fragments are damaged – “torn”, “stained”, “rubbed”, “faded” occur frequently in Genizah catalogues – but some fragments are more damaged than others. Ink corrosion can destroy a text almost completely. A page torn vertically is harder to make sense of than one torn horizontally. It is especially frustrating but also tantalising when writing is preserved but earlier conservation work has, through error or a misunderstanding, obscured it. In such cases, working today with the UL’s Conservation... Read More
Genizah Fragments
Nadia Vidro
on Thu 13 Jul 2023
Has tags: calendar, conservation, Genizah Fragments, polemic, Saadiah Gaon
Ben Outhwaite
on Wed 22 Mar 2023
The Arabic Poetry in the Cairo Genizah project (APCG) recently embarked on a tour of the United Arab Emirates, showcasing its collection of poetry manuscripts to scholars and the public in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. Dr Mohamed Ahmed, head of the project, organized the tour in the Gulf with the aim of highlighting the significance of the Cairo Genizah as a repository of Arabic literature and an important – but little known – resource for Arabic textual history.
... Read More
Has tags: Arabic, exhibition, Genizah Fragments, poetry
Melonie Schmierer-Lee
on Tue 21 Mar 2023
The Kedem YouTube channel has recently published three video interviews with Ben Outhwaite, dealing with some recent discoveries and perennial fascinations of the Genizah. So, if you are interested in hearing what he thinks about the Kyiv Letter’s origins (spoiler: he thinks Norman Golb was spot on) or the new Maimonides discovery by Prof. Delgado (... Read More
Has tags: Genizah Fragments, Hexapla, Kiev, Moses Maimonides, podcast
Melonie Schmierer-Lee
on Thu 16 Feb 2023
A new online exhibition ‘Coins of the Cairo Geniza’, curated by Matthew Dudley and Alan Elbaum of the Princeton Geniza Lab, brings together data on the many coins and currencies that crop up in Genizah manuscripts. The exhibition presents coins from the Princeton Numismatic Collection and images of Genizah documents, according to state authority, regnal years, production thresholds, alternative names, and etymology.
In the 12th century fragment T-S AS... Read More
Has tags: coins, currency, exhibition, Genizah Fragments
Ben Outhwaite
on Tue 7 Feb 2023
In December 1033 CE – late afternoon on the 12th day of the Hebrew month of Tevet – a terrible earthquake shook Palestine. Across the region, cities were levelled and a tsunami wave arrived on the Mediterranean coast. The events of that day and its aftermath reached Egypt soon afterwards in a letter written by the scribe Solomon ben Ṣemaḥ. The letter, T-S 18J3.9, can be seen on Cambridge Digital Library with... Read More
Has tags: earthquake, Fatimid, Genizah Fragments, letter, Ramla, scribe
Sarah Bunin Benor and Abby Graham
on Wed 2 Nov 2022
Historically, most well-known documents in Jewish languages have been penned by men. However, Jewish women have also recorded their voices in writing and in song. At the Hebrew Union College—Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) Jewish Language Project, we searched for Jewish women’s voices throughout history. We found documents and recordings in twenty languages (some with multiple dialects) from the tenth century to the present, including letters, poetry, memoirs, lullabies, translations of religious texts, and more. To give a sense of the chronological, geographic, and linguistic... Read More
Has tags: Dunash b. Labrat, Genizah Fragments, language, letter, widow, Women
Melonie Schmierer-Lee and Catherine Ansorge
on Wed 19 Oct 2022
Catherine, what are you working on at the moment?
I’m writing about the Rosetta Stone and a connection it has to Cambridge, dating from the time it was originally shipped from Alexandria to London in 1801. The British Museum’s current exhibition to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the decipherment of hieroglyphs by Jean-Francois Champollion from the text on the Stone, provides a good opportunity to investigate this further.
We’ll look forward... Read More
Has tags: Agnes Lewis, Egypt, Genizah Fragments, Lewis-Gibson, Margaret Gibson, Q&A
Nick Posegay
on Thu 13 Oct 2022
This post is lightly edited from the original Twitter thread here.
So there’s this box in the Genizah Research Unit at the Cambridge University Library (CUL). It’s labelled “Worman Archive.” It’s supposed to be full of stuff associated with Ernest James Worman, a librarian who catalogued the Genizah collection 120 years ago. Recently I found out that’s not all true.
... Read More
Has tags: E.J. Worman, Genizah Fragments, Geoffrey Khan, paper, Persian
Melonie Schmierer-Lee and José Martínez Delgado
on Wed 12 Oct 2022
Pepe, what are you working on at the moment?
I’m working on a new book about daily life in al-Andalus, and I’ve been looking for new materials to include in it. I decided to have a look at a list I made when I visited 6 years ago of lexicographical Genizah fragments, to see if any of them might be suitable for the book, and saw in my list one I had described as ‘Andalusi script’. I had a look at it and something about it seemed familiar. At the last line, I realised what I was looking at. I had seen this handwriting before. I quickly sent a message to my friend Amir... Read More
Has tags: al-Andalus, Genizah Fragments, glossary, language, Moses Maimonides, Q&A, Romance, vocabulary
Melonie Schmierer-Lee and Jason Sion Mokhtarian
on Wed 5 Oct 2022
Jason, your new book, Medicine in the Talmud, has just been published. Can you tell us about some of the Genizah fragments you used in your research?
To the best of my knowledge, there aren’t many Genizah fragments that record Talmudic medicine, but one such fragment is T-S F1(1).31, a page of the Babylonian Talmud from tractate Gittin. Five other pages from the... Read More
Has tags: Babylonian Talmud, Genizah Fragments, medical, Q&A