Announcing From the Field, interviews with scholars about recent publications related to the Cairo Geniza. In this video, Paul Cobb, Alan Elbaum and Marina Rustow discuss a Fatimid report from 1109 on the Crusader siege of Tripoli, published in Crusades in 2025. www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfpP...

Princeton Geniza Lab's From the Field: A Geniza document from 1109 about Fatimids and Crusaders

YouTube video by Princeton Geniza Lab

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Cute amulet doggy spotted 🧙🐶 Can anyone figure out what the spell is for? geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents...

Spotted in an early modern Judaeo-Arabic accounting fragment: sanbūsak (samosa)! geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents...

Great to see the actual color of lac! This pigment was a major commodity traded from India to Yemen and Egypt. One of the Geniza merchants who dealt in dyes and dyed cloth was known as al-Urjuwānī, "the purple dealer" Some of the Geniza documents about lac --> geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents...

Joumana Medlej@majnouna.com · last mo.

Lac pigment collected after I demonstrated the process in an online class a few weeks ago, before and after drying/pulverising. #medievalpigments

A poetic lawsuit brought by animals against humans: "How great is man's haughtiness! He rules over the lion with his spear, he strikes fleas and lice in his wrath, and he tramples ants as he walks." The ox bellowed and cried. . . 🔱 🦁 👊 🪰 👣 🐜 geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents...

"For humans and jinns sleep, but your father does not sleep—he stays up and prays for you all night and day, weeping so much over his separation from you that he has lost his vision in one eye." (12th-century letter sent from Alexandria to a brother in Yemen) geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents...

Letter: T-S 13J28.15

Letter from a certain Yosef, in Alexandria, to his brother, an India trader. Mentions Aden (verso, right margin, l. 15)…

geniza.princeton.edu

Elaborate medieval medical prescriptions in Judaeo-Arabic including one for "tremor, palpitation, and desolation/loneliness" (الرجف والخفقان والوحشة). "Take mastic, cinnamon, clove, spikenard, nutmeg, cubeb, cardamom, galingale. . . ." Read more here: geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents...

Yesterday with @genizalab.bsky.social team & @jerielizabeth.bsky.social in @princeton.edu Commons Visualization Lab to see how the "CURVE" could enable new research on Princeton Geniza Project materials. Shown: mosaic of "join" fragments arranged by similarity; prototype PGP image search/browse.

For the first time since the Princeton Geniza Project began in 1986, we have published our metadata collated from over 30,000 Geniza documents and the People, Places, and histories of the Middle East and premodern Jewish communities found therein! zenodo.org/records/1583...

Given the expanded capabilities of the new PGP site (v4), we're finally retiring PGPv3. We chose April 3, 2025 as its final date, S. D. Goitein's 125th birthday. Many thanks to Ben Johnston of @mcgrawect for building the site & running it. You can find the archived content here:

A gorgeous prayerbook (maḥzor) for the high holidays copied in Mallorca(!) in 1332 CE, recently spotted by PGP researcher Tani Robinson. geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents...

"He disdains me because I have little pomposity" (وقد حقرني لحال انني قليل البهرجة) - a humble teacher writing about his rich, apparently pompous uncle (Avraham Ibn Yiju) Document record: geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents... Published edition: princetongenizalab.github.io/goitein-indi...

"When I parted from you, I intended to sail to the island of Cyprus, but a strong storm diverted the boat to Tarsus. I was very much afraid that the king would take hold of me and detain me. . . ." Letter from Alexandria to Cairo, ~1212 CE geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents...

A very sweet letter reminiscing on a visit to the house of Maimonides, who is depicted here enjoying lemon drops and playing with a cute toddler. "I kissed his noble hand, and he received us with a most cordial welcome. He said to me, 'Come and sit...'" geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents...

Letter: T-S 8J14.18

Letter from a member of the nasi family of Mosul addressed to Shelomo b. Yishay. Dating: the events described in…

geniza.princeton.edu

Not to be missed! A landmark new book in Arabic documentary legal studies by Mathieu Tillier and Naïm Vanthieghem. Includes many previously unidentified Cairo Geniza fragments. Pictured: geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents...

A Judaeo-Arabic text about Alexander the Great, with the text of a letter from the Persian king Darius ("king of kings and master of the nations of the world"), commands Alexander to submit to him: geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents...

Literary text: T-S K25.262

Literary text in Judaeo-Arabic in two columns about Alexander the Great. Narrating how when Alexander went east to wage war…

geniza.princeton.edu