Page from a notebook containing drafts or accounts. One paragraph mentions a certain Abū Maʿālī who received 7 (dirhams?) on behalf of the cantor and 10 on behalf of Abū l-Barakāt Ibn al-Isḵāf (?); a second paragraph states ‘all of the yarn to Ibn al-Laḥm’. Also mentioned are quantities of commodities, dinars and dates.Condition: torn, holes, rubbedLayout: 1-8 lines (2v is blank)
Recto: accounts, mentioning names such as Abū Naṣr. Verso: part of an Arabic petition, addressed to the Amir (?).Condition: torn, holes, rubbed, fadedLayout: 8 lines (recto); 2 lines (verso)
Recto: possibly accounts, entitled ‘work in the synagogue’. Verso: two names: [...] b. Abraham and [...] b. Hilāl.Condition: torn, holes, rubbed, fadedLayout: 2 lines
Accounts in Hebrew and Arabic script, mentioning names such as Abū l-Barakāt, Abū l-Makārim, Abū Saʿd, and quantities of currency. On verso jottings written across the Arabic accounts.Condition: torn, holes, rubbed, stainedLayout: 10 lines + marginalia (recto); various lines (verso)
Accounts of the owner of a shop, recording the prices of grocery items, such as rice, sugar, sumac, almonds, hazelnuts, pomegranate seeds, bread and cheese. The names of some customers are mentioned, including Ibn al-Ramlī, Abū l-Faḍl and Naṣir b. Ṯābit, and whether they owe money. Parts of the account, which is written in large, crude characters, are repeated in a smaller and better trained hand. In addition, individual words are repeated in Arabic script, probably as a writing exercise. On recto, there are some jottings.Condition: Holes, slightly stainedLayout: various lines
Recto: accounts in a crude hand. Verso: document, probably a letter, in a different hand.Condition: torn, holes, stainedLayout: 5 lines (recto); 4 lines (verso)
Fragment from a notebook with drafts (of a letter) and accounts. Mentions Ḥayyā [Yaḥyā] ha-Kohen ha-Melammed and Abū l-Ḥasan and measures such as qirrāṭ.Condition: torn, holes, rubbedLayout: 8 lines + marginalia (recto); 10 lines (verso)
Recto: accounts; written over an older document, possibly with Coptic numerals. Verso: (draft of a?) letter.Condition: torn, holes, fadedLayout: various lines (recto); 5 lines (verso)
Accounts; list of names such as Ḥusayn, Abū ʿUṯmān, Aḥmad ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, ʿAbd al-Ṣamad, ʿAbd al-Raḥīm, Joseph and Ibn Ḥusayn; with Coptic numerals.Condition: torn, holes, rubbedLayout: 4-5 lines
List of names and persons, mentioning names such as Abū l-Ṭāhir, Abū l-Faraj, Umm Abū Saʿīd, Joseph ha-Kohen, and many more, mostly followed by ṯawb ‘cloth’.Condition: torn, holes, rubbed, stainedLayout: 4-17 lines
Lists of names with Hebrew numerals, possibly wages. Mentions the different days of the week and repeats the same names such as Ibrahim, Ḥusayn, Joseph and al-Ḥallāl.Condition: torn, holes, rubbed, faded, stainedLayout: various lines
Recto: lists of prices. Verso: list mentioning Sitt Ḡanāʾim (lady of the sheep) and the leader Abū Manṣūr.Condition: torn, holes, rubbed, stainedLayout: 7 lines (recto); 4 lines (verso)
List of names and houses with numerals, most of them 100 or 200, probably for tax purposes. Names include Naṣrullah Qūṣī, Mūsā Nuwās and many more.Condition: torn, holes, rubbed, stainedLayout: 12-15 lines (2r blank)
List of names of contributors and amounts of their contributions in figures, mentioning approximately 50 proper names.Condition: holes, slightly rubbed, slightly stainedLayout: 21 lines (recto); 16 lines + marginalia (verso)
Recto: expenses accounts with Coptic numerals. Mentions several books such as Dīwān al-Muʿaẓẓamī, Dīwān al-Jahmī and Dīwān al-Ṣārim. Verso: legal document, mentioning Joseph and his mother, the name Elʿazar and a ketubba.Condition: torn, holes, rubbed, faded, stainedLayout: various lines (recto); 13 lines (verso)
Possibly an account of auctioning the right to read a paraša: a list of parašot from Exodus and Leviticus with the words ‘dirhem’ or ‘two dirhems’ written next to each one of them in Arabic script. The text at the top of recto, which may not be related to the account, mentions the names of Abū Naṣr al-Dalāl and Abū l-Faḍl. With jottings in Hebrew and Judaeo-Arabic on verso.Condition: Torn, holes, rubbed, stainedLayout: various lines
Recto: Arabic accounts, mentioning expenses for things such as good olive oil, firewood, melon, beans etc. Verso: Judaeo-Arabic note concerning the sale of books.Condition: torn, holesLayout: 4 lines
Recto: accounts with sums in dinars, mentioning the colours white, black and blue. Verso: note stating that when Abū l-Fakr reads it he should come quickly and talk to Karīm about a guarantee for two garments with further payment instructions.Condition: torn, holes, stainedLayout: 5-8 lines in 2 columns + marginalia (recto); 6 lines (verso)
Leaf from an alchemical notebook preserving portions of an alchemical recipe. The text refers to gold, silver, lead, borax, salt and copper.Condition: tornLayout: 13 lines
Alchemical recipes describing methods of preparation of metals (copper, sulphur), how to burn them, wash them, dry them and grind them. Mentions a crucible, a glass furnace (most likely a furnace for the preparation of glass) and qulquṭār (a reddish oxide of iron).Condition: Torn, fadedLayout: 30 lines (recto; verso is blank)
Collection of alchemical recipes divided in chapters (bāb), including recipes for the preparation of good silver, of salt of calx, on the preparation of lead, on the calcification of salt (recto), on the cleansing of tin, on the pulverisation of sulphur. Recipes on verso end with a benediction with the tetragrammaton written as ייי.Layout: 48 lines (recto); 32 lines (verso)
Alchemical recipes, with titles. Recto: description of the whitening of copper with lead, prescribing the pounding of yellow arsenic, mercury and yellow sulphur together, their cooking and purification. The preparation obtained must be projected on copper that has been purified with fire. Line 14: description of the ‘Great Work’ (i.e. metallic transmutation), including operations on mercury, sulphur and arsenic. Authoritative opinions are reported under the name ‘the Gentleman’ - al-ustādh (recto, line 13) and al-shaikh (verso, lines 1 and 6).Condition: Holes, slightly stainedLayout: 20 lines (recto); 17 lines (verso)
From an Arabic alchemical text of an operative nature. The purpose of the recipes is unclear due to lacunae. Ingredients include iron, sandarac, musk, (human) urine and cow’s urine. An iron pot and mortar are mentioned as apparatus.Condition: Torn, holes, rubbed, faded, stainedLayout: 20 lines (recto); 18 lines (verso)
Leaf from a work on operative alchemy, describing operations for silver and gold, the dissolution and dealbation (whitening) of arsenic in vinegar and other operations (including one on pearls). A passage on verso describes the removal of humidities from bodies. The author appears to be talking about his own experiences in the first person.Condition: Torn, holes, slightly stainedLayout: 31 lines (recto); 30 lines (verso)
Collection of recipes without clearly stated aims. The ingredients listed (mostly stones, metals and salts) seem to point to an alchemical background for the fragment. A small number of names of ingredients (e.g. sal ammonia) are given in a Romance language.Condition: Torn, holes, slightly faded, slightly stainedLayout: 42 lines + marginalia
Collection of alchemical recipes and apparatus. The text opens with a discussion of balances and weights, describes various apparatus for mixing, giving the weights of the different ingredients and indicating the corresponding planetary names for the metals. Other materials mentioned are sal ammoniac (‘the eagle’) and alum (potassium sulfate) from Yemen. Recipes are organised according to their main ingredient.Condition: Tiny holes, slightly stainedLayout: 44-51 lines
P1: f. 1r: description of a dream dated 525 AH (= 1130 CE); f. 1v: alchemical recipe called ‘the operation of mixture’; f. 2r: invocation to God. P2: f. 1r: alchemical recipe (continues from P1 f. 1v); f. 1v: calendar in which the Hebrew months of Sivan and Tammuz are mentioned; f. 2v: invocation to God and separate letters. P3: leaf 1: magical words and description of their use, with a mention of the city of Damascus; calendar mentioning Jewish festivals (Passover, Ḥanukka). P4: f. 1r: sequence of letters arranged according to the abrade; f. 1v: on the substitution of letters in words according to the Kabbalah; P4 leaf 2: calendar with mention of Hebrew festivals (continues from P3, leaf 1). P5: f. 1r: very damaged, only a few letters legible; f. 1v: list of some of the months of the Jewish calendar; f. 2r: description of movements of the sun (first 8 lines) and list of some months of the Jewish calendar; f. 2v: badly rubbed. P6: f. 1r: description of celestial phenomena; ff. 1v, leaf 2: on the reckoning of the days of the festival with mention of the leap year. P7: ff. 1r-2v: mention of a musical instrument in Arabic and Hebrew; f. 2r: mention of Rabban Gamaliel and reckoning for the rising of the New Moon. P8: unidentified Hebrew text. P9 recto: alchemical recipe involving the use of vitriol; verso: Arabic (separate letters and words and unidentified partial text).Condition: torn, holes, rubbed, stainedLayout: 0-16 lines
Hebrew instructions for producing silver and gold, followed by Hebrew writing exercises and an unidentified Arabic text.Condition: holesLayout: 20 lines per page (recto) 22 lines (verso)
Alchemical or medical recipe containing both organic and metal substances, followed by a short history of the Umayyid caliphate in Damascus. Both texts are written in the same hand. On recto there are also 2 lines from the end of an Arabic legal document.Condition: Slightly tornLayout: 31 lines
Recto: two alchemical recipes. The first recipe (ll. 1-8) is aimed at producing ‘the work’ (אלצנעה), a word commonly used for indicating the production of gold, silver or the elixir that would turn base metals into precious ones. Ingredients mentioned are: sublimated arsenic, vinegar, sulphur, dissolved salt, sublimated mercury. The second recipe is composed of two parts. The first part (ll. 8-14) describes a preparation requiring silver, salt, water, mercury, and sal ammoniac that is aimed at obtaining a clear plate of metal. The second part (ll. 14-end) requires the use of quicksilver, horse manure, sal ammoniac, the Khurasani (?) and young boys’ urine. The end of the recipe is lost. Verso: part of a widely-spaced letter sent to a nagid in Fusṭāṭ.Condition: Torn, fadedLayout: 36 lines (recto); 16 lines (verso)
Recipe instructions, mentioning stones and metals such as beryl, borax and diamond, and three pounds of mercury.Condition: torn, holes, rubbedLayout: 14 lines (recto); 3 lines (verso)
Amulet with angelic names (Uriel, Rafael, Gabriel); boxed tables with magical words on recto; magic square and Star of David with magical letters on verso.Condition: holesLayout: 17 lines (recto); 10 lines (verso)
Ben Sira 31:24-32:7, 32:12-33:8. The fragment derives from MS.F.Condition: torn, holes, slightly stainedLayout: 21 lines in 2 columns (recto); 20 lines in 2 columns (verso)
Ben Sira 39:15-40:8, with Hebrew marginal glosses. The fragment derives from MS.B. Under the same classmark is the original letter written by Solomon Schechter to Mrs Lewis announcing the discovery of the first known fragment of ‘the original Hebrew of Ecclesiasticus’, dated 13/5/96 (13th May 1896).Condition: torn, holes, badly rubbed, stainedLayout: 17 lines in 2 columns + marginalia
Ben Sira 4:23; 4:30-31; 5:4-7; 5:9-13; unidentified verse; 25:8; 25:13; 25:17-24; 26:1-2. Unvocalised but with verse divisions marked by a single dot. Derives from MS.C.Condition: torn, holesLayout: 11-12 lines
Ben Sira 3:6-5:10; 14:11-16:26, unvocalised but with verse divisions, marginal glosses and several deletions and corrections. The fragment derives from MS.A.Condition: tornLayout: 29 lines
Ben Sira 5:10-7:29; 11:34-14:11, unvocalised but with verse divisions and a marginal gloss. The fragment derives from MS.A.Condition: tornLayout: 28-29 lines
Ben Sira 3:14-18; 3:21-22; 4:16; 4:21; 20:22-23; 4:22-23; 26:2-3; 26:13; 26…15-17; 36…27-31. Unvocalised but with verse divisions. The fragment derives from MS.C.Condition: torn, holes, rubbedLayout: 11-12 lines
Ben Sira 10:19-11:10, unvocalised but with verse divisions. The fragment derives from MS.B.Condition: torn, holes, badly rubbed, stainedLayout: 17 lines in 2 columns + marginalia
The Aramaic Levi Document. This is a medieval copy (10th c. or earlier) of a work found in fragmentary form at Qumran (seven fragments dating probably from 2nd c. BCE, although the work itself may date from a century before that). This piece was the first part of this work to be identified, by H. L. Pass in 1900; subsequently other parts of the same original manuscript have been discovered in Oxford and Manchester. The text contained in this fragment corresponds to Aramaic Levi 1:1-3 and 11:5-13:12 in the Greenfield, Stone and Eshel edition (2004).Condition: Badly torn, holesLayout: 9-23 lines in 2 columns
Ben Sira 30:11-31:11; 37:27-38:27, with verse divisions, and interlinear and marginal corrections and alternative readings. The fragment derives from MS.B.Condition: torn, holesLayout: 18 lines + marginalia
Ben Sira 32:1-33:3; 35:11-36:26, with verse divisions, and interlinear and marginal corrections and alternative readings. The fragment derives from MS.B.Condition: torn, holesLayout: 18 lines + marginalia
Ben Sira 49:12-50:22, with verse divisions, and interlinear and marginal corrections and alternative readings. The fragment derives from MS.B.Condition: tornLayout: 18 lines + marginalia
Ben Sira 50:22-51:30, with verse divisions. The fragment derives from MS.B. F. 1v (at 51:12) has a decorated פ in the margin.Condition: torn, holesLayout: 18 lines + marginalia
Ben Sira 15:1-16:7, with Hebrew marginal glosses. The fragment derives from MS.B.Condition: torn, holes, rubbedLayout: 17 lines (recto); 18 lines (verso)
An astrological work linking the time of the beginning of a tequfa with profit, food, pasture, illness and well-being. Gives names of guardian angels for tequfot beginning at different times of day and night. Mentions at the top of recto כתאב חוכמאת.Condition: torn, holesLayout: 12-14 lines
Recto: work in Judaeo-Arabic on the 7 planets, presumably from a text on the creation of the world. Verso: text in Hebrew on tequfot, mentioning the names of the guardian angels of tequfat Ṭevet.Condition: torn, holesLayout: 6-7 lines
Quasi-astrological text, on days of a month and hours of a day which are auspicious (or not) for travel.Condition: torn, stainedLayout: 14 lines (recto); 8 lines (verso)
Recto: horizontal text is concerned with fortune telling, and foretells events which will happen if a particular event (not preserved) takes place in a certain month. Recto vertical text: unidentified. Verso: diagram.Condition: torn, stainedLayout: various lines
Leaf from an astrological work, dealing with the connection between the position of the stars in the sky and the development of epidemic and epizootic diseases, the rise of the Nile, the consequent floods and the successful growth of the crops.Condition: Torn, goles, rubbedLayout: 20 lines
Probably prognostications or explanations regarding the calendar, mentioning the months Aviv and Nissan.Condition: torn, holes, rubbedLayout: 14 lines (recto); 15 lines (verso)
Badly rubbed text, possibly astrological or calendrical, as it mentions the sun and moon.Condition: torn, holes, badly rubbed, fadedLayout: 9 lines (recto); 8 lines (verso)
Astrological table, mentioning the sun and the planets, such as Mercury and Jupiter.Condition: torn, holes, rubbed, stainedLayout: various lines (recto); jottings (verso)
Astrological table, mentioning the sun and the planets, such as Mercury and Jupiter.Condition: torn, holes, rubbed, stainedLayout: various lines (recto); jottings (verso)
Bifolium from an astrological work, mentioning the planets Venus, Jupiter, Mercury and Saturn.Condition: torn, holes, rubbed, faded, stainedLayout: 27-33 lines
Astrological work, discussing on what day the year starts and its implications, mentioning the moon and ‘red glowing stars’.Condition: torn, holes, rubbedLayout: 10 lines (recto); 8 lines (verso)
Astrological text, mentioning the moon and the constellation Gemini, and predicting weather and crop conditions.Condition: torn, holes, rubbedLayout: 11 lines (recto); 13 lines (verso)
Astrological text, referring to the star signs Scorpio and Sagittarius and advising which actions to take at certain times (including travelling, sowing, harvesting, treating a patient, and wearing clothes).Condition: torn, holes, rubbed, faded, stainedLayout: 20 lines
Astrological text on the signs of the zodiac, mentioning the treatment of diseases.Condition: torn, holes, rubbed, badly stainedLayout: 19 lines (recto); 8 lines (verso)