Our Throwback Thursday this week is taken from issue 68 of the printed edition of Genizah Fragments, published in October 2014, by Blanca Villuendas Sabaté:
Although Genizah manuscripts are regarded as one of the most relevant sources for social history, divinatory fragments have often been overlooked. They mirror the innermost worries, hopes and fears of the users, thus offering a unique insight to the Genizah society. Medieval peoples’ desire to know about the future was no less intense than... Read Moremagic
Ben Outhwaite
on Fri 14 Jan 2022
Thabit ibn Qurra On Talismans and Ps.-Ptolemy On Images 1-9. Together with the Liber prestigiorum Thebidis of Adelard of Bath ● By Gideon Bohak and Charles Burnett ● Sismel, 2021
Not everyone can claim to have looked at every single item in the Taylor-Schechter Collection. Even after a quarter of a century working on the Genizah, I’m not sure I’ve... Read More
Has tags: Book, Genizah Fragments, magic
Melonie Schmierer-Lee
on Wed 17 Nov 2021
The Israel Museum’s new exhibition, Hear, O Israel, The Magic of the Shema, explores the complex relationship between ‘religion’ and ‘magic’ in the story of the Shema – a text recited by Jews since time immemorial. The exhibition brings together artefacts from Qumran tefillin to Babylonian magic bowls, with protective incantations covering all eventualities and amulets of all descriptions. The exhibition is accompanied by a handsome, hardcover exhibition guide that is both scholarly and... Read More
Has tags: exhibition, Genizah Fragments, magic
Melonie Schmierer-Lee
on Thu 16 Sep 2021
Our Throwback Thursday this week is taken from issues 8 and 9 of the printed edition of Genizah Fragments, published in October 1984 and April 1985, by Shaul Shaked:
Among their varied treasures, the Cairo Genizah collections contain valuable materials for the study of a number of fields of Jewish and general interest for which they have, until now, hardly been used at all. Among these fields are Judaeo-Persian texts and magic fragments and it was to... Read MoreHas tags: Genizah Fragments, Karaite, magic, mystical, palimpsest, Persian
Melonie Schmierer-Lee
on Thu 10 Jun 2021
Our Throwback Thursday this week is taken from our Fragment of the Month in September 2007, by our late colleague Friedrich Niessen and Gideon Bohak:
‘Take a plate of lead and write on it in the first hour of the day; bury it in a new grave which is three days old’. Thus starts a Judaeo-Arabic instruction preserved in the Additional Series (... Read More
Has tags: curse, Genizah Fragments, magic