The term ‘silk road’ likely conjures up images of a well-trodden track, somewhere in central Eurasia, walked by merchants and camels carrying exotic cargo. From the outset, the British Museum’s new major exhibition, Silk Roads, challenges this image with the addition of a single letter – this fabled route was no single road. It also involved much more than silk. Entering the exhibition gallery, the journey begins with cases of objects from Japan, the Korean peninsula, and Tang China, illustrating... Read More
Genizah Fragments
Melonie Schmierer-Lee
on Fri 13 Dec 2024
Has tags: British Museum, exhibition, Genizah Fragments, trade
Drew Longacre and Melonie Schmierer-Lee
on Wed 11 Dec 2024
Drew, you visited Cambridge this summer to look at Genizah Psalms fragments – tell us about your project.
I came to examine a dissertation here, and then stayed for an extra week to work on Psalms manuscripts for a critical edition of the Hebrew text of the Psalms for the HBCE (Hebrew Bible: a Critical Edition) series. Brent Strawn and I have funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities for a three-year project to produce the printed edition, and it will be accompanied by a digital edition too.
Which manuscripts will you include?
Thanks to our... Read More
Has tags: Bible, codex, Dead Sea Scrolls, Genizah Fragments, Psalms, scroll, vocalisation
Melonie Schmierer-Lee
on Wed 13 Nov 2024
Yesterday evening, Nick Posegay and I stood in Heffers Bookshop before a supportive crowd of family, friends, and Genizah enthusiasts to speak about and officially launch 'The Illustrated Cairo Genizah'. The book marks the Genizah Research Unit's 50th anniversary, and celebrates the increasing public interest in the Genizah collection. It showcases over 300 of the Genizah's more eye-catching fragments, in 12 thematic chapters (Highlights, Bible & Judaism, Sketches & Illustrations, Letters, Magic, Science & Medicine, Arabic & Islam, Documents, Ketubbot, Education, Bookmaking... Read More
Has tags: Book, Cambridge, Genizah Fragments
Melonie Schmierer-Lee
on Tue 1 Oct 2024
We are delighted to announce that Ben Outhwaite, Head of the Genizah Research Unit since 2006, has today become Professor Outhwaite – Professor of Genizah Studies. The appointment was announced in the Cambridge University Reporter of 31 July 2024, and comes into effect today, on the 1st October 2024. The appointment recognises... Read More
Has tags: Cambridge, Genizah Fragments, GRU
Melonie Schmierer-Lee and Nick Posegay
on Wed 19 Jun 2024
Nick, you’ve recently published an article about a Bible fragment.
That’s right. Two fragments in fact: T-S NS 305.198 and T-S NS 305.210. They join together to make a single bifolium from an Arabic psalter manuscript. So, a book of Psalms and other liturgical songs that would’ve been sung in Arabic church services. This page is the beginning of the ‘canticles’, a selection of songs from other parts of the Bible that Orthodox churches included at the end of their psalters. The first canticle here is from Exodus 15:1–120. It’s known as the ‘Song of the Sea’, the song... Read More
Has tags: Arabic, Bible, Genizah Fragments, Q&A
Melonie Schmierer-Lee
on Fri 7 Jun 2024
Cairo Genizah manuscripts are usually torn or damaged in some way. There are often pieces missing or words that are hard to read where the ink has rubbed or flaked away. But what happened to the missing pieces? Some of the scraps are kept in a crate in our manuscript storage area – blank or believed to be too damaged or fragmentary to be worth conserving, and picked several times over for anything worth assigning a class mark. Towards the bottom of the crate, the fragments become smaller and smaller, until they are just ink crumbs and dust: 'the dust of centuries' as Schechter once... Read More
Has tags: conservation, Genizah Fragments, printed
Marc Michaels
on Fri 7 Jun 2024
My colleague, Estara Arrant posted an image on social media of one of the nine fragments that constitutes T-S K22.16, jokingly remarking that the streaky brown mess resembled a slice of toast.
As one might expect the catalogue entry on these fragments is short. Very short. It consists of one word - ‘illegible’. This of course piqued my interest. What was the ‘toast’ hiding? Also, I love a challenge. Thus, the day after the 2024 Ullendorff lecture, Estara brought the manuscript into the Genizah Unit and we set to work to solve the puzzle.
Whilst we refer to this as toast,... Read More
Has tags: Genizah Fragments, Targum
Nick Posegay and Melonie Schmierer-Lee
on Fri 24 May 2024
We are very excited to announce that our new book, The Illustrated Cairo Genizah, is now available for pre-order! See https://linktr.ee/CambridgeGRU to order.
2024 marks 50 years since the founding of the Genizah Research Unit at Cambridge University Library. To celebrate our 50th birthday, we are publishing a large coffee-table style book to share the highlights of the Cambridge Genizah Collections. 320+ manuscript images are presented over 12 thematic chapters, accompanied by facts, background, and answers to... Read More
Has tags: Book, Genizah Fragments
Melonie Schmierer-Lee
on Mon 20 May 2024
From 15 September 2023 to 31 March 2024, the Centro Sefarad-Israel in Madrid hosted a new bilingual Spanish-English exhibition ‘La Edad de Oro de los Judíos de Alandalús’ (The Golden Age of the Jews of Al-Andalus). In its 6-month run in the atmospheric brick-lined basement of the Centre, the exhibition received 15,000 visitors. For those who were not able to visit, a video tour (in Spanish) of the exhibition is... Read More
Has tags: al-Andalus, exhibition, Genizah Fragments, Moses Maimonides
Marc Michaels
on Tue 30 Apr 2024
As a Sofer STa”M (scribe) one of the tasks I undertake is to write giṭṭin – Jewish divorce documents – sadly, usually one or two a month for the last 25 years.
There are many giṭṭin in the Genizah and, as dated documents,1 with mention of the husband and wife and the ʿedim (witnesses) they provide a window into the society, bringing real people to the fore. However, whilst looking through these, one fragment caught my attention as it was not about the individuals,... Read More
Has tags: divorce, Genizah Fragments, get, marriage, scribe