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Posted at Dec 09/2007 04:56PM:
sebastian: We read selections from the fourth volume of "A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza" by Prof. Shelomo Goiten of Princeton University for a taste of the Geniza Documents.

This assemblage of correspondences, dowries, contracts, laws, poems, and histories were placed in the genizah of Fustat (a genizah is a "hiding place" for unused documents inside of a synagogue).

These documents are also important because they allow us to look at Muslim society through the lens of the Jewish culture in medieval Egypt. The volumes of work cover such wide range of things as domestic life, the economy, dietary practices, city zoning, taxes, architecture practices, government, cultural life and muli-religious interaction.

These sources are invaluable because they give an "in the moment" written perspective on Islamic life.

Prof. Cohen from "Goitein, the Geniza, and Muslim History" highlights a few of Goiten's other insights into the documents: "The introduction enumerates five specific contributions of the Geniza documents: (1) they preserve information on trade, prices, and monetary values; (2) they fill gaps left by Islamic chronicles; (3) they provide information on the lower classes of society; (4) they include copies of documents from the government chancery; (5) they illuminate the history of the Arabic language, particularly medieval Arabic dialects."

http://www.princeton.edu/~geniza/goitein.html http://www.dayan.org/mel/cohen.htm

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Posted at Dec 10/2007 08:36AM:
ian: These have been invaluable resources for understanding the nature of the archaeological record of a site such as Fustat as it is transformed in the period from the Fatamids to the Mamluks. One thing to note is that the bulk of these documents are writen in Arabic but with Hebrew script.