The Genizah Research Unit welcomes Vasile Condrea For the next six months the Genizah of Bucharest (Romania), Vasile Research Unit will be hosting Vasile gained a Licenza in Biblia e Condrea. With funding from the Archeologia with Studium Biblicum Northern Bridge Doctoral Training Franciscanum (2008–2012). In Partnership, Vasile will be spending 2011 he came to the UK for an his time in Cambridge learning MA at Durham (‘Micah 6: A Parallel best practices for assessing and Perspective of the Biblical Text’). cataloguing Hebrew and Aramaic He is now in the final stages of his manuscripts, including how to read PhD at Durham. It is a syntactic The Newsletter of the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit, Cambridge University Library No. 70 October 2015 different scripts and learning about description of Targumic Aramaic Hebrew codicology. He will also be using the Targum of I Samuel as the preparing descriptions of a selection basis for his study (the provisional of Genizah Targum fragments title of which is ‘The Syntax of the that will be made available on Verb in Targum Aramaic – a Text- Palimpsests? There’s more than meets the eye… Cambridge Digital Library. linguistic Approach’). Some manuscripts are difficult After completing his undergraduate Melonie Schmierer-Lee to read because they’re stained degree in Theology at the University Genizah Research Unit or faded; others have an inconvenient crease above a crucial word. And others are palimpsests with ghostly A Novel Approach to the Cairo Genizah undertexts that survived medieval attempts to erase them to accommodate new Pyramid Genizah chamber turn out to writings. As a part of a new By David Gibbins be a palimpsest – the upper combined methodological T-S K23.4, Croydon, UK: Headline text of which is a letter by approach, from 14–18 September undergoing Publishing Group, 2014 pp. 448. Judah ha-Levi to his son-in-law the Genizah Research Unit and multi-spectral RRP £7.99 Abraham Ibn Ezra discussing the Cambridge University Library imaging. Image disappearance of the caliph hosted an international team by Gregory “Jack looked at his watch, and Al-Hakim. of scholars and scientists – Heyworth, then up at the hole into the palaeographers, physicists Michael Phelps, Geniza chamber above him, The Genizah features in some 50 and specialists of multispectral Damian Kasotakis black and slightly forbidding. pages of the 448-page novel, and imaging – joining forces in the and Roger Easton ‘Okay. There’s no time for in an author’s note at the end deciphering and interpretation dithering, or, the gods protect Gibbins lays out the historical of a number of manuscripts Palestinian Aramaic, Georgian or Jerusalem Talmud. In most chemical composition of inks me, for curses. Let’s do it.” facts that he drew upon for with readings that are Armenian as well as in Hebrew cases, however, the lower texts and writing materials. inspiration. Of the Genizah, particularly difficult. Initiated and Aramaic. The original are difficult and often almost Pyramid, the eighth in he writes “The story of the and coordinated by a Hebrew texts were erased with care to impossible to read. Fortunately, Michael Phelps and Damian David Gibbins’ novels on recovery and study of the Geniza palaeographer, Judith Olszowy- accommodate new ones, but new non-destructive Kasotakis of the Early archaeologist and adventurer documents is one of the greatest Schlanger of the École Pratique traces of the ancient writing technologies developed Manuscripts Electronic Library Jack Howard weaves the Ben in the history of scholarship, and des Hautes Études in Paris in can still be seen between or recently can successfully assist (EMEL), Gregory Heyworth Ezra Synagogue and a newly its discovery should rank alongside collaboration with Ben Outhwaite below the lines of the upper traditional palaeography by of the Lazarus Project, and discovered fragment into that of Tutankhamun’s Tomb in the of the Taylor-Schechter Genizah texts. Palimpsests were some enhancing the texts’ readability Roger Easton of the Rochester one of the book’s dramatic annals of Egyptian research.” Research Unit, the project has of the first fragments to attract and providing insights into the Institute of Technology carried plot lines. Two fragments of applied cutting-edge technology the attention of scholars soon vellum discovered lodged Melonie Schmierer-Lee and multidisciplinary scientific after the discovery of the The Genizah Research Unit is grateful for the generous support of in a hole in the wall of the Genizah Research Unit analysis to the study of dozens of Cairo Genizah. Indeed, both the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Friedberg Genizah Project, the Genizah fragments. lower and upper texts of these fragments contain unique texts, British Academy Small Research Grant Scheme (Leverhulme Funds), The Hebrew palimpsests in such as Greek Bible translations the Wellcome Trust (Research Resources), and the Parasol Foundation. We are also appreciative of other smaller or anonymous donations, The Lauffer Family Charitable Trust has generously contributed towards the cost of producing this particular are a challenge for of Aquila, and Origen’s newsletter in memory of the late David Lauffer, an enthusiastic student of history and supporter the reader. They were written Hexapla (which had long been including those made following visits to see the manuscripts in of the Genizah Research Unit. on reused leaves from older considered lost), or the most Cambridge University Library. volumes in Greek, Latin, Christian ancient extant copies of the Genizah Research Unit Genizah Fragments 70 Cambridge University Library Editor Melonie Schmierer-Lee West Road, Cambridge, CB3 9DR, England Design H2 Associates, Cambridge ON OTHER PAGES: Language, Gender and Law | A Christian Liturgical Calendar in Hebrew Palimpsests? continued from page 1 A Christian liturgical calendar in Hebrew out multispectral imaging light from ultraviolet through Ira Rabin, Oliver Hahn and radiation causes elements This join of three fragments from using technologies based on the visible spectrum to the Zina Cohen of the Center for such as calcium, iron, copper, Cambridge University Library is innovations arising from the infrared. Special filters were the Studies of Manuscript zinc, etc. to emit characteristic a page of a Christian liturgical Archimedes Palimpsest project employed for the ultraviolet Cultures (CSMC), Hamburg X-rays that are recorded and calendar in Hebrew. It was probably (www.archimedespalimpsest. (UV) fluorescence. Transmissive & BAM Bundesanstalt für translated into individual written in 14th-century southern org), which have been illumination (“backlighting”) was Materialforschung und- intensities by the XRF- France, from where it made its way, further improved during the employed on the spots where prüfung, Berlin, used their spectrometer. This non-contact somehow, to the Cairo Genizah. EMEL’s ongoing work on the the parchment is less thick, impressive equipment for technique is a breakthrough in palimpsests from St. Catherine’s including tiny letter-shaped X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) the fingerprinting of historical Christian calendars in Hebrew Monastery of the Sinai. The channels where iron gall ink had screening. XRF technique is inks and, therefore, has are found in a small number of cameras captured some 30 eaten into the parchment. The commonly used for analysis great potential for medieval French, Provençal, and German images of each selected collected raw data images were of elemental composition of manuscript studies. manuscripts, mostly Jewish prayer Genizah fragment under then processed to maximize various objects in the field of books, from this period, and all twelve different wavelengths of their legibility. cultural heritage. X-ray incident The team of manuscript share a similar structure. Each specialists from Paris – Judith month occupies a whole or half a T-S F17.4, Kogel from the Institut de page; it is headed with the month’s undergoing Recherche et d’Histoire des name, here transliterated from the XRF screening. Textes of the CNRS and Daniel French as Mars, Avril, followed by Image by Stökl Ben Ezra and Judith the number of days in it, and then Damian Olszowy-Schlanger of the the equivalent Hebrew month Kasotakis EPHE – accompanied the (Nisan, Iyyar). Below are seven scientific teams and interpreted columns showing all the possible the data. Needless to say, days of the week. improved readings of the Composite image palimpsests and of the faded Along these columns are a of T-S AS 144.307, or disputable passages of selection of saint days and T-S AS 144.322, and important writings such as other Christian feasts, in Hebrew T-S K2.11 the so-called ‘Kiev letter’ (T-S transliteration. The letter sin stands 12.122) or Damascus Document for ‘Saint(e)’. Some of the saints are (T-S 16.311) will contribute standard in the Catholic tradition, St Eutrope of Saintes (Charente- 25 March – also marked here as Why did French Jews write considerably to our knowledge e.g. St Mark on 25 April. But a Maritime, 30 April). the traditional Jewish day of the Christian calendars in Hebrew? of Genizah manuscripts and number of them are less usual, and tequfah, equinox). Sometimes the Jewish traders needed to know Jewish history in general. specific to western and south- The Hebrew rendition of the names are polemically distorted: when markets, often held on western France, from where this saints’ names sometimes reflects thus H. ariah Yos.iena, two words saint days and Christian festivals,