Cambridge University Library
Our Throwback Thursday this week is taken from issue 63 of the printed edition of Genizah Fragments, published in April 2012, by the conservator Lucy Cheng:
Mosseri IXa.1.28 is a paper fragment, which was crumpled and exposed to dust due to less than ideal storage in the past. After testing the stability of the inks, the fragment was cleaned by gentle brushing, and encrustation of dirt or dust was broken down with pressure from a small spatula and the debris brushed away. To... Read More
Has tags: conservation, Genizah Fragments, Mosseri
Amir, which manuscripts are you working on today?
I'm actually working on dozens of manuscripts relating to Abraham Maimuni, as part of a project led by Mordechai Akiva Friedman. Right now, I’m looking at T-S 10K8.9, T-S 12.205, T-S 13J9.11, T-S 13J26.21 verso, T-S NS 100.74, T-S Ar.18(2).73, T-S AS... Read More
Has tags: Abraham Maimonides, debt, Genizah Fragments, legal, Mordechai Akiva Friedman, Q&A, responsa
Scattered through the many Genizah manuscripts from the Cairo Genizah are doodles and page decorations, drawings and designs. When studying and cataloguing thousands of pages of text you will only come across these pictures on occasion, and often, if you are busy deciphering the handwriting and identifying the author, the pictures can be an interesting sideline, a bit of light-hearted amusement or only given a brief glance.
Now, however, Pinar Zararsiz, during her internship (2019-2020) at the Woolf Institute in Cambridge, has gathered together many, and a wide variety of, examples... Read More
Has tags: drawing, exhibition, Genizah Fragments
Our Throwback Thursday this week is taken from issue 41 of the printed edition of Genizah Fragments, published in April 2001, by Erica C.D. Hunter and Friedrich Niessen:
In 1980, in the fourth volume of A Mediterranean Society, page 467, S. D. Goitein noted that T-S NS J390 (23.5 x 11.7 cms) and T-S 13J7.8 (27.4 x 6.5 cms) could... Read More
Has tags: Christian, dowry, Genizah Fragments, Goitein, marriage, Peshitta, Syriac, trousseau
Magdalen - which manuscript are you working on today?
This morning I’m working on fragments from the T-S NS 305 and NS 306 sections of the collection, which contain mainly Arabic-script material of a wide variety of genres. In particular, I’ve been looking at an Arabic-script fragment (T-S NS 306.13), which contains part of Qiṣṣat al-Jumjuma (‘The Story of the Skull’). This story is found fairly frequently in the Cairo Genizah collections in Judaeo-Arabic (e.g., T-S Ar.37.39 and JTS ENA 1275.5, 12, 13, ENA 2700.48, and ENA 3239.34). This fragment is particularly... Read More
Has tags: Arabic, Genizah Fragments, literary, Q&A, tale
The items in this shopping list reveal the careful planning and budgeting needed to celebrate the festival of Shavuot in style. First published by S.D. Goitein (Med. Soc IV, pp. 230-231), this fragment (T-S NS J437) dates to the 13th century, and may have been written by the court scribe Solomon b. Elijah. It includes (for Friday): little chickens, meat, a pound of fat tail, a hen, garden mallow, cubeb and garlic, two measures of sesame oil, eggplants; and (for Saturday): a lemon hen, chard, onions, safflower... Read More
Has tags: Genizah Fragments, Goitein, Shavuot
Our Throwback Thursday this week is taken from issue 13 of the printed edition of Genizah Fragments, published in April 1987:
In the course of editing a corpus of mediaeval Arabic legal and chancery documents preserved in the Cambridge Genizah Collection, Dr Geoffrey Khan, Research Assistant in the Genizah Unit, has discovered a decree on the subject of fishing rights.
The decree was issued by the Fatimid government of Egypt in the twelfth century and is intended to protect... Read More
Has tags: al-Hafiz, Chancery, Fatimid, fishing, Genizah Fragments, Geoffrey Khan
125 years ago today, Solomon Schechter sat down to write to Agnes Lewis. His quick note dashed off ‘in haste and great excitement’ told her that he’d managed to identify one of her recently purchased manuscripts as the original Hebrew text of the book of Ecclesiasticus (Ben Sira or Sirach). It had been preserved in Greek, Syriac and other translations, but the Hebrew original was lost and its very existence was doubted by many scholars who thought the book had originally... Read More
Has tags: Adolf Neubauer, Agnes Lewis, Arthur Cowley, Ben Sira, Bodleian, Ecclesiasticus, Genizah Fragments, Jerusalem Talmud, Lewis-Gibson, Margaret Gibson, Solomon Schechter
Q&A Wednesday gives a short interview with a Genizah researcher: what are they working on today? And why?
Nick, what are you working on this week?
Lately I’ve been working on late-dated manuscripts in Genizah collections. Looking at fragments dated after 1864, trying to work out how they ended up in genizot, and thinking about what that means for “Cairo Genizah” collections as we typically understand them.
Have you found many fragments that are dated that late?
I’ve found about 25 that are explicitly dated, but I suspect... Read More
Has tags: Agnes Lewis, Genizah Fragments, Greville Chester, ketubba, Margaret Gibson, printed, Q&A, Solomon Schechter, Yemen
With the relaxing of Covid restrictions on museums and galleries from the middle of May, I’m pleased to report that ‘Ghost Words’ will finally be open to visitors, six days a week from 24th May. Booking is essential, however, as restrictions have been relaxed but not entirely removed. For more information on what to expect and how to book go to:
https://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/ghostwords
‘Ghost Words’ brings together a plethora of CUL’s most important palimpsest manuscripts, and, as you might expect, this includes a... Read More
Has tags: exhibition, Genizah Fragments, Ghost Words, Hexapla, Origen, palimpsest, Yannai
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