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    Plan détaillé Texte intégral Introduction 1. Manuscript fragments acquired directly from a find spot in 1889 2. Manuscript fragments acquired through antiquities dealers, 1890-1896 3. Manuscript fragments acquired directly from a find spot, 1896-1899 4. Manuscript fragments acquired through antiquities dealers and other sources in the 20th century 5. Conclusion Notes de bas de page Auteur

    Fragments, manuscrits, livres dans le monde juif

    Ce livre est recensé par

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    Table des matières

    History of the acquisitions “from the Geniza” in the Bodleian Library: a first assessment

    Rebecca J. W. Jefferson

    p. 75-108

    Texte intégral Introduction 1. Manuscript fragments acquired directly from a find spot in 1889 1) Bought through the Rev. G. J. Chester, 1890 (from the Geniza) 2) Given by the Egypt Expl. Fund, 1890 (from the Geniza) 2. Manuscript fragments acquired through antiquities dealers, 1890-1896 1) Bought through the Rev. G. J. Chester, 1890-1 (from the Geniza) 2) Bought through the Rev. G. J. Chester, 1891 (from the Geniza) 3) Bought through the Rev. G. J. Chester, 1892 (from the Geniza) 4) From the Geniza (1892?) 5) Bought from Wertheimer, 1892 (from the Geniza) 6) From the Geniza (1892) 7) Bought from Wertheimer, 1893 (from the Geniza) 8) From the Geniza (1894?) 9) Bought from Wertheimer, 1895 (from the Geniza) 10) Given by A. E. Cowley, 1895 (from the Geniza) 11) Bought from Wertheimer, 1896 (from the Geniza) 12) From the Geniza, 1896 3. Manuscript fragments acquired directly from a find spot, 1896-1899 1) Bought through the Rev. Prof. Sayce, 1896 (from the Geniza) 2) Bought through the Rev. Prof. Sayce, 1899 (from the Geniza) 3) From the Geniza, 1899 4. Manuscript fragments acquired through antiquities dealers and other sources in the 20th century 1) Bought in 1906 through J. Offord 2) Acquired in 1906 3) Bought in 1907 from J. H. Greenstone of Philadelphia 4) Fols. 1-32, from the Geniza 5) Found Among Neubauer’s Library Papers 6) From the Geniza, but unbound until 1911 7) Acquired by Exchange from C. D. Ginsburg 8) Found in the Hebrew Room 9) Found Loose in ms. Opp. Add. 4o 151 10) Given by A. Cowley in 1910 11) Given (through F. Ll. Griffith) in 1911 by G. W. Murray 12) Given by A. Cowley, from the Geniza, except f. 18 which came from North Africa 13) Given in […] by A. Cowley, all (?) from the Geniza 14) Given in 1915 by A. Cowley, who bought the volume from a dealer 5. Conclusion Notes de bas de page Auteur

    Texte intégral

    Introduction

    1Through an analysis of the acquisition history of the Genizah fragments at the Bodleian Libraries, this article seeks to probe further into the problematic, all-encompassing provenance label “from the Geniza”.1 This label has been applied liberally to Hebrew fragment collections around the world even when the provenience (find spot) and provenance (chain of ownership) of the fragment is unproven. The phrase “from the Geniza” has been used by curators and scholars to indicate that the original find spot was the Genizah chamber inside the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Old Cairo. The single source provenience overlooks the fact that the synagogue was rebuilt in 1892, and it assumes that the Genizah chamber discovered in 1896 had always been there.2 The problem is compounded by the fact that large numbers of fragments did indeed emanate from the Ben Ezra Synagogue Genizah chamber. The famous recovery of a “Hoard of Hebrew Manuscripts” from that find spot by Solomon Schechter in 1896-97 overshadowed and distorted the history of all prior and subsequent Genizah discoveries. Fragments discovered before 1897 were retroactively provenanced as “from the Geniza”, and those discovered after 1897, when Genizah provenance became a sought-after commodity, were either assumed to be or proclaimed to be from the same source. Thus, the application of the provenance label “from the Geniza” to all fragments found before and after Schechter’s Ben Ezra hoard occurred either because of a romanticized and unquestioned origin story,3 or due to a lack of concern about provenance, or because it was tacitly acknowledged that provenance tracing for smaller numbers of fragments was too difficult and possibly not worth the effort.

    2Recent research has demonstrated that provenance tracing for Genizah collections (and the provenance of their provenance) is both possible and worth the effort, even if the results are still imperfect and ever evolving.4 Lynn H. Nicholas, who has conducted painstaking research into the Nazi plunder of looted art treasures, observes that provenance research can be daunting due to the “many dead ends and gaps” one encounters, as well as the range of obstacles and complications the researcher has to overcome in order to “peel back the layers of the onion”.5 Archaeologist Neil Brodie, likewise, in his multiple investigations into trafficking culture and the scholarly reception of unprovenanced materials, points out that “the achievement of the antiquities market is that from the time of its inception it has consistently managed to shield itself from critical enquiry”.6 Nevertheless, provenance research is gathering pace thanks to the massive amounts of archival and historical data being made available online. Collections that were once believed to be completely deficient in documentation are proving to have documentation after all, and new cross-disciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches to writing the history of collections are revealing hidden networks and enabling helpful connections to emerge.7

    3The Bodleian’s Genizah collection provides an ideal case study for Genizah provenance research and research into the broader history of Hebraica collections and collecting. The Bodleian collection comprises within it many sub-collections acquired from different sources, both early and late purchases and donations (before and after Schechter), as well as materials that through archival research can be linked to a find spot. The first catalogue of the early acquisitions (pre-1906), compiled partly by Adolf Neubauer and completed by Arthur Ernest Cowley in the early twentieth century, established the fragments’ provenience as “from the Geniza of the Synagogue at Old Cairo”. And with regard to fragments that came to the Bodleian from Jerusalem, thanks to “a certain Rabbi Wertheimer”, Cowley noted that “there is no doubt that they ultimately came from the same Geniza”. A closer look at the Wertheimer fragments, however, suggests that materials from other sources were mixed in with pieces from Cairo, and some may well have had a Palestine and/or Yemenite provenience. As to collections of fragments acquired after 1906, many were catalogued as “from the Geniza” but with a qualifying adverb such as “probably”, “originally”, or “ultimately”.

    4The Bodleian’s fragments were bound up into volumes soon after they arrived at the Library. This method was later criticized for creating difficulties when it came to cataloguing the fragments in line with the previous catalogue of Hebrew manuscripts, which classified the fragments according to subject, and for separating fragments that belong together.8 Nevertheless, this method proves a boon for provenance research, enabling an analysis of each fragment type, folio number, condition, and other physical properties, according to its source (seller/donor). When broken down into its parts, the collection looks quite different to previous assessments which judged it as one entity. Prior descriptions of the collection as a whole have all noted that its significance lies in the “remarkable size” of many of its documents and that the collection has an average number of multi-folio items “unparalleled elsewhere”.9 Calculating the size of the collection in this way overlooks the fact that some of the sub-collections, like Offord’s in 1906, mostly comprise single or bifolium leaves in poor condition. While the preference for multi-folio items was clearly a consistent guiding principle, a careful analysis of the collection by acquisition source reveals that multi-folio items are found more typically among the earlier collections of Genizah fragments than those acquired later. Seen this way, the item to folio ratio could represent what was available on the market at the time, rather than the condition of the final complete entity now known as the “The Cairo Genizah Collection of the Bodleian Libraries”.10

    5This analysis breaks down the Bodleian Genizah collection into distinct groups, first by provenance and provenience and then into sub-collections by seller/donor and date of acquisition.11 The first groupings comprise four distinct types and periods of collecting: 1. Manuscript fragments acquired directly from a find spot in 1889; 2. Manuscript fragments acquired through antiquities dealers, 1890-1896; 3. Manuscript fragments acquired directly from a find spot, 1896-1899 and 4. Manuscript fragments acquired through antiquities dealers and other sources in the 20th century. Within each of these four groupings, the sub-collections are organized according to the acquisition statement in the Neubauer and Cowley 1906 catalogue or the Cowley 1929 typescript catalogue—for example, “Given by the Egypt Expl. Fund, 1890 (from the Geniza)”. Each sub-collection is supplied with a short provenance description, based on recent archival research. The sub-collection is then analysed according to its number of folios, material type, material condition, and the broad subject matter. This treatment demonstrates that each sub-collection has distinct patterns or traits that can either support or negate the idea of a single find spot. Taken together with the archival evidence, such an analysis provides further proof that the provenance label “from the Geniza” has been applied too liberally and that the true picture is more complex than hitherto assumed and worth re-examining.

    1. Manuscript fragments acquired directly from a find spot in 1889

    1) Bought through the Rev. G. J. Chester, 1890 (from the Geniza)

    6The Bodleian Library is the only institution known to possess manuscript fragments derived directly from the medieval Ben Ezra Synagogue building as it was in the process of being dismantled late in 1889. These fragments were hand-selected by the British collector and Egyptologist, Reverend Greville John Chester (1830-1892), who travelled to Egypt on an annual basis beginning in 1864.12 When Chester visited the synagogue, he encountered a room laid open with a floor “literally covered with fragments of MSS & Early printed Hebr. books & MSS of leather”. Claiming that he had “bought the best” he could find, he mailed a packet of fragments to E. W. B. Nicholson, the Bodleian Librarian, that same day. He took the remainder with him on his dahabiyah and sent off four packets three days later on December 23, 1889 and three packets on January 4, 1890.13

    7The “Payment for MSS” accounts ledger in the Bodleian Library Records indicates that Chester was paid for these fragments in January and March 1890.14 In keeping with Neubauer’s method of accession, each installment of fragments was organized into volumes according to general subject category (e.g., Bible), and size of fragment and then bound together. Bound volumes were labelled according to language category, size, and number order: thus, ms. Heb. b. 4 (2611) has the abbreviation “Heb.” for Hebrew; a letter from “a-g” indicating the size of the volume (for shelving purposes), and a number signifying the order in which the volume was bound.15 From this method, we can determine that the fragments in volume ms. Heb. b. 4 arrived at the Bodleian before those bound into ms. Heb. b. 9 (2817), although there are occasional departures from this order.

    8Provenance was usually recorded at the time of acquisition (although in a few cases it was forgotten or unknown), and then noted much later in the catalogue descriptions.16 Using the cataloguing records together with archival evidence, we can ascertain that the manuscripts Chester discovered from within the Ben Ezra synagogue building are most likely the 37 volumes labelled “Bought through the Rev. G. J. Chester, 1890 (from the Geniza)”. These volumes contain 213 items, totalling 1197 folios, which is an average of 6 folios per item.

    9According to the catalogue description, 66% of the items are written on vellum, and 27% are noted as having a poor state of preservation.17 All of the fragments have been identified; their content mostly falls under the broad categories of Bible, Liturgical fragments, and Rabbinical Literature (roughly 25% each), followed by Documents and Judeo-Arabic Literature (roughly 10% each), as well as single items of early Jewish Literature, Judeo-Persian Literature, and Karaite Literature, as well as one “very much obliterated” Writing Exercise.18

    2) Given by the Egypt Expl. Fund, 1890 (from the Geniza)

    10The Bodleian received a second collection of Hebrew fragments in 1890 as a gift from the Egypt Exploration Fund. They had been discovered in November 1889 by Count Riamo d’Hulst (c. 1850-1916), who worked as an excavator for the Fund between 1887-1893. During the 1889 winter season, D’Hulst was employed to search in the rubbish mounds of Old Cairo for Fatimid pottery. During the course of his work, he came across some Hebrew fragments, and he forwarded a random sample to the Egypt Exploration Fund. He did not provide any provenance for them at the time other than to say that he had been working in the environs of the Roman gate. After they reached London early in 1890, the fragments were sent to the British Museum. They were donated to the Bodleian later that year without crediting him as the original discoverer.19

    11According to the Neubauer and Cowley catalogue, seven volumes of fragments are attributed to the Egypt Exploration Fund, composed of 93 items, 212 folios, which is an average of 2 folios per item. Of these 93 items, 58% are paper and 70% show signs of some sort of damage. The content of the collection falls under ten broad descriptive categories, with Documents and Rabbinical Literature representing the largest proportion (30%), and Judeo-Arabic Literature and Liturgical fragments making up the next largest (approx. 10% each). The remainder represent one or two items of Esoteric Literature, Grammar and Masoretic Literature; two fragments are unidentified.

    2. Manuscript fragments acquired through antiquities dealers, 1890-1896

    1) Bought through the Rev. G. J. Chester, 1890-1 (from the Geniza)

    12When Chester returned to Egypt for the winter season in November 1890, his letters indicate that he was working with a third party to acquire Hebrew manuscripts. He received the fragments in “instalments” and he mailed them off to England in “batches” of several “packets”. The letters do not indicate the original find spot for these items. Two packets sent to Oxford on November 2, 1890 (before Chester took a trip to Smyrna) were those most likely catalogued as ms. Heb. a. 1-2: “Bought through the Rev. G. J. Chester, 1890-1 (from the Geniza)”.20 Ms. Heb. a. 1 (2613) consists of two Bible fragments, and the 24 items in ms. Heb. a. 2 c 24 (2805) can be broadly categorized as documents. 81% of the manuscripts are vellum, with 33% recorded as having some sort of damage.

    2) Bought through the Rev. G. J. Chester, 1891 (from the Geniza)

    13After his return from Smyrna on November 23, 1890, and during the remainder of the winter season up until March 3, 1891, Chester mailed between six to eight batches, each batch comprising either two or five packets of Hebrew manuscripts.21 The Bodleian paid for these consignments in January, March and April, 1891; thus, despite the fact that some of the fragments physically arrived at the Bodleian in late 1890, it is most likely that they correspond to the 26 volumes catalogued as “Bought through the Rev. G. J. Chester, 1891 (from the Geniza)”.

    14Rather than taking the risk of having fragments sent back to him in Egypt, Chester instructed the Library to hold on to anything it didn’t want until he returned in March. Cambridge University Library was the only other institution to have purchased Hebrew manuscripts from Chester. His sale to Cambridge in 1891 constituted 33 manuscripts, all liturgical.22 Thus, with regard to selection from the Bodleian, it appears that most of Chester’s offerings were approved and accepted.

    15Chester’s “1891” fragments in the Bodleian comprise 394 items, totalling 1913 folios, an average of five folios per item. 78% of the items are vellum, 15% are recorded as damaged, and 5% as stained. Twenty-one pieces (5%) are identified as having Yemenite script. The contents of this sub-collection can be broadly designated into 13 broad categories, with Liturgical (40%) and Rabbinic Literature (22%) representing the greatest number, followed by Judeo-Arabic Literature (16%) and Bible (11%). The number of Documents supplied is considerably lower than the number sent in the previous year, representing only 1.5% of the collection.

    3) Bought through the Rev. G. J. Chester, 1892 (from the Geniza)

    16When he returned to Egypt the following winter season (November 1891 to March 1892), Chester’s collecting activities were hampered by the influenza epidemic in Cairo and his own bouts of ill health. His letters to Nicholson, which are preserved in the Bodleian Library Records (BLR, ledger e. 479), indicate that he mailed three, possibly four, batches containing ten or more packets of Hebrew manuscripts to the Bodleian. These batches must correspond to the twenty volumes in the collection that are catalogued with an 1892 acquisition date.

    17The 20 volumes consist of 371 items, for a total of 1594 folios, which is an average of four folios per item. In contrast to his earlier consignments, which comprised a higher number of vellum fragments, the number of paper and vellum fragments are almost equal: vellum (52%) and paper (47%); one fragment is on papyrus. Nevertheless, like all of Chester’s offerings, most of the fragments are in a good physical state–with only 13% being described as injured, obliterated or stained. The same proportions of category type present in the previous consignment are also present here with the largest percentage representing Liturgical fragments (36%) and Rabbinical Literature (26%), followed by Judeo-Arabic Literature (22%) and Bible fragments (10%), as well as much smaller amounts that can be placed in the following broad categories: Documents, Early Jewish Literature, Esoteric Literature, Grammar, Hebrew Literature, and Masoretic Literature.

    4) From the Geniza (1892?)23

    18Five manuscript leaves comprising palimpsests (P) are labelled “Syr. c. 15-18 (P)”, and two are labelled “Syr. d. 32-33 (P)” were acquired at different times. Both were previously catalogued under one shelfmark: “Syr. c. 4” (2656) with the acquisition note: “From the Geniza (1892?)”.24 Nevertheless, these two sets of manuscript leaves (both with different lower and upper texts and scripts) can be traced to two known Bodleian suppliers: Rev. G. J. Chester supplied Syr. c. 15-18 (P) in 1891, and A. H. Sayce supplied Syr. d. 32-33 (P), most likely in 1893.

    19Chester’s fragments, portions of the Old and New Testament in Christian Palestinian Aramaic overwritten by sections of the Mishnah, were published by George Henry Gwilliam in 1893 with a notice describing their Egyptian provenance: “Early in the year 1891, five parchment leaves were sent to the Bodleian Library from Egypt, where they had been procured by the late Rev. Greville J. Chester”.25 This procurement is attested to in a letter sent from Cairo to Oxford dated November 27, 1890, wherein Chester informed the Librarian that he would be sending him more “Hebr. MSS”, including a palimpsest. On December 14, 1890, Chester wrote that he had received another installment of “Hebr. MSS” together with another palimpsest.26

    20Mss Syr. d. 32-33 (P), Numbers and Wisdom texts in Christian Palestinian Aramaic, overwritten by sections of the Sifra, were supplied by the Oxford scholar and collector Archibald Henry Sayce. These fragments were published by Gwilliam, together with Francis Crawford Burkitt and John F. Stenning, in 1896, with the following statement of provenance and provenience (dated October 1895):27

    Shortly after the publication of the five fragments of Palestinian Syriac in a former volume of the Anecdota Oxoniensia, two more fragments were procured for the Bodleian Library by Professor Sayce. All the seven leaves had been discovered, with other writings, in an underground chamber beneath a synagogue in Cairo, when the site was cleared to make room for new buildings.

    21The find spot attributed to Sayce’s palimpsest fragments should not be extended automatically to Chester’s palimpsests. The only thing known for certain about Chester’s palimpsests is that they were sent to him from an unknown dealer. Had it been known at the time that the dealer obtained them from “an underground chamber beneath a synagogue in Cairo” there would have been no need for Neubauer to commission Sayce (and through him d’Hulst) to find the source of the manuscripts coming out of Egypt after Chester’s death in 1892.28

    22In fact, it wasn’t until March 1895 that Sayce was able to inform Neubauer that his “Cairo friend (d’Hulst) has succeeded in discovering & entering the old subterranean place from which the Hebrew MSS have all come”.29 Despite this good news, d’Hulst and Sayce struggled to purchase manuscripts from that source for months afterwards. One box of fragments appears to have arrived in July but the next box was not dispatched until November. By October 1895, Gwilliam had clearly given up on the idea that additional palimpsest leaves could be acquired from that “quarter” and went ahead with his publication.30

    23The notion that all seven pieces shared the same original find spot was promulgated by Gwilliam (probably through Neubauer) only after d’Hulst had discovered the “subterranean place” in March 1895, and only after Sayce had declared to Neubauer that this was the place “from which the Hebrew MSS have all come” [emphasis mine]. In other words, an underground chamber in a synagogue in Cairo was designated as the find spot for all seven palimpsest fragments, and the catalogue firmly branded them as “from the Geniza”, only subsequent to later discoveries and through association with the “other writings” found there.

    5) Bought from Wertheimer, 1892 (from the Geniza)

    24The Jerusalem-based scholar and collector, Solomon Aaron Wertheimer, purchased Hebrew manuscripts from Egypt in the 1880s and 1890s primarily for his own scholarship. However, by 1892 personal financial difficulties forced him to sell some of his collection. The Bodleian Library appears to have been the first recipient of these sales, and its financial ledgers (BLR c. 59) show a first payment to Wertheimer on 5 November 1892 for one British pound and one shilling, and a second on 24 December for three British pounds and five shillings. The introduction to the catalogue states: “A considerable number also were bought from Jerusalem, where they were in the possession of a certain Rabbi Wertheimer, but there is no doubt that they ultimately came from the same Geniza”31. These fragments were labelled as “Bought from Wertheimer, 1892 (from the Geniza)”.

    25Wertheimer’s 1892 sub-collection comprises of 68 items, totalling 608 folios, with an average of nine folios per item, bound up into 11 volumes. The majority are on vellum (68%) and, according to the catalogue, only 31% of them show any sign of physical damage. Seven items (10%) are described as having “Yemenite script”. The largest number of items (62%) are Liturgical with the next largest category (23%) representing Bible fragments.

    26Like the other sub-collections at the Bodleian attributed to Wertheimer, this one does not contain any “Documents”. Yet, at least 15 documents, including two marriage contracts from the 17th and 18th century, appear on a list of 95 items that Wertheimer offered to Cambridge University Library in 1894. In addition to Hebrew fragments designated as “from the Geniza”, the Bodleian also purchased a manuscript copy (169 folios) of a “commentary on the Pentateuch by Moses ben Nahman” from Wertheimer that year.32

    6) From the Geniza (1892)

    27Three volumes of fragments in the collection, ms. Heb. d. 54 (2671), ms. Heb. d. 55 (2741), and ms. Heb. g. 6 (2688), are labelled as “from the Geniza (1892)” without any additional seller/donor information. The three volumes contain 35 items, a total of 172 folios, with an average of five folios per item. 29% of the fragments are recorded as having some sort of physical damage. As to content, all of the items can be broadly classified as either Liturgical, Rabbinical Literature, or Judeo-Arabic Literature. Two items are written in Yemenite script.

    28Despite the fact that one item in this sub-collection, ms. Heb. d. 55, ff. 1-14, can be joined to fragments known to have been supplied by Chester in 1892 (ms. Heb. d. 41, ff. 11-15), it seems most likely that they were supplied by Wertheimer. Following the general rule that fragments were bound up as soon as they had been arranged, the volumes ms. Heb. d. 54-55 and ms. Heb. g. 6 are numbered sequentially after volumes of fragments that came from Wertheimer in November 1892 (ms. Heb. d. 49-51 and ms. Heb. g. 5) and before those supplied by him in 1893 (ms. Heb. d. 56-58).33 With regard to broad content type and proportion, this sub-collection of unattributed fragments also resembles those purchased from Wertheimer in 1892 and 1895: i.e., mostly Liturgical fragments and Rabbinical Literature, some Judeo-Arabic Literature, a few items with Yemenite script, and no Documents.

    7) Bought from Wertheimer, 1893 (from the Geniza)

    29In 26 February 1893, Wertheimer signed an agreement with an individual who seems to have been either a Yemenite trader or a Sephardi emissary.34 The agreement stated that Wertheimer would pay his partner an initial payment of “two English pounds” for the purchase of “ancient writings” and that thereafter they would split any profits derived from selling the manuscripts overseas. This document does not contain any mention of the Ben Ezra synagogue and its Genizah. On 27 February 1893, Wertheimer sent a sales list of manuscripts to Cambridge University Library. In April, he wrote again asking for a response, and he added that he had a “Sefer-Tora” to sell whose source was “one of the Genizas of Old Egypt”.35 Wertheimer also sent several batches of manuscripts to the Bodleian that year. He was paid on March 17, 1893 (one British pound and ten shillings), on May 5, 1893 (five British pounds), and on August 11, 1893 (six British pounds and five shillings). Manuscripts purchased in 1893 were labelled as “Bought from Wertheimer, 1893 (from the Geniza)”, except for one volume, ms. Heb. b. 5 (2607) where the initial letter of his first name “S” is also supplied.

    30In total, the 1893 sales comprised 172 items, totalling 783 folios, an average of five folios per item, which were bound into 14 volumes. Over half of the items (56%) are on paper; 41% show signs of damage, and 6% are described as “stained”. One striking difference from Wertheimer’s 1892 sub-collection is an increase in the number of fragments that can be broadly categorized as Judeo-Arabic Literature (31%), and the number of items of Rabbinical Literature (26%). Furthermore, 43 items (a quarter of the total) supplied through Wertheimer’s partner are described in the catalogue as having “Yemenite script”. One of the items, ms. Heb. d. 57, ff. 1-10 (2745) is a copy of a Kabbalistic prayer dated to 1839. In addition to the supply of Hebrew fragments, Wertheimer also sold a c. 18th century manuscript copy (200 ff.) of parts of the medical treatise Tadhkira awla al-albab wa al-jamia’ li’ajbi al-’ajab by Dawud ibn ‘Umar al-Antaki (ms. Heb. e. 53). Antaki was the chief physician of Cairo in the seventeenth century and his medical compendium the Tadhkira became greatly popular across the Ottoman Empire.36

    8) From the Geniza (1894?)

    31Another palimpsest in the Bodleian collection, labelled ms. Georg. c. 1 (P), was catalogued in a similar way to the palimpsests described above with a firm provenience statement and unresolved date of supply: “from the Geniza (1894?)”. The upper text of the fragment is a section of the Jerusalem Talmud, tractate Bava Qamma, and the lower text is a Georgian version of Jeremiah thought to be from the 9th century.

    32The Bodleian catalogue record (2672) also lists two other fragments under the same shelfmark, ms. Georg. c. 1, which were previously bound up with an Armenian manuscript. The Bodleian’s catalogue of Armenian manuscripts, published in 1918, describes them as having once been part of ms. Arm. f. 7: “the common-place book of a student […] a hotchpotch of all sorts of topics, without order, and mostly in fragmentary form”;37 and with regard to the fragments themselves, it notes: “The Georgian Khoutzouri fragments, formerly bound in at both ends of the volume, and taken from a manuscript of the 14th century, are now catalogued as ff. 3.4 of ms. Georg. c. I”. Thus, although the two fragments were originally part of a Georgian liturgical manuscript commemorating the martyr St. Babylas, Bishop of Antioch, they were presumably re-used as binding matter in the Armenian manuscript (f. 7) which itself was acquired by the Bodleian in 1897.38

    33The uncredited supplier of the Georgian-Hebrew palimpsest, ms. Georg. c. I (P), appears to have been S. A. Wertheimer.39 Robert Blake studied the fragments in 1921 and reported learning of this provenance from Cowley who informed him “that the fragment had been acquired in 1894 along with several others from Rabbi S. Wertheimer in Jerusalem, and that its provenance from the Geniza collection was almost certain”.40 Despite managing to recall this information in 1921, it is curious that Cowley did not record Wertheimer as the supplier in the 1906 catalogue. Errors in the 1906 catalogue may be explained by the fact that Cowley was engaged for many years in other work, including compiling the catalogue of Sanskrit manuscripts, before he was able to complete Neubauer’s Hebrew catalogue.41

    34Blake later discovered that this fragment matched fragments in Cambridge University Library (T-S 12.183) and in the British Museum (Or. 6581), and he therefore concluded that “the question is settled as to the provenance of the Oxford fragment”. Still, he also noted that the home of the original Georgian manuscript was most likely “[…] from Palestine, where literary work in Georgian monastic circles began early” and less likely from Egypt where he doubted the existence of any “colonies of Georgian monks […] outside of Sinai”.42 Palestine was also the birthplace of the upper text, the Jerusalem Talmud; a fact which, when considered in combination with the location of the supplier, might point towards a location in Palestine as the original find spot.43

    9) Bought from Wertheimer, 1895 (from the Geniza)

    35Despite the fact that three payments were given to Wertheimer in 1894, no manuscript acquisitions are attributed to him in the catalogue for that year.44 Acquisitions from Wertheimer are recorded one year later, however, and six payments to him in 1895 are noted in the Library’s records. These acquisitions included three volumes of Hebrew fragments attributed as “from the Geniza”, and two volumes of non-Genizah Hebrew manuscripts.

    36Of the fragments “from the Geniza”, there were 12 items, a total of 158 folios, with an average of 13 leaves per manuscript. Ten items on paper, with four of them (33%) described as having some sort of physical damage. The content can be broadly categorized as mostly Rabbinical Literature (4 items) and Liturgical (4 items); there are no Documents. Five items (42%) are described as having Yemenite script. Wertheimer’s other sales included ms. Heb. e. 57 (2831), a sixty-six folio Yemenite Midrash on Esther with a colophon dated 1636 CE, and ms. Heb. e. 59 (2788), a sixty-folio manuscript described in the catalogue as “Sefer Nitzahon (at the end Sefer HaNitzahonut), controversial treatise by an Italian author of recent date”.

    10) Given by A. E. Cowley, 1895 (from the Geniza)

    37The two items, totalling eleven folios, in ms. Heb. f. 51 (2820) are described as “Given by A. E. Cowley, 1895 (from the Geniza)”. Cowley visited Palestine and Egypt in 1894 with his Oxford friend, the Aramaic scholar, John Frederick Stenning.45 The main aim of the trip was to study the Semitic manuscripts held in monasteries, particularly those at Saint Catherine’s Monastery in the Sinai. The eleven folios that Cowley donated to the Bodleian collection comprised nine folios of the biblical book of Exodus written in shorthand as well as two folios of a liturgical work quoting Exodus. Neubauer did not attempt to date the fragments, but similar pieces acquired from Chester in 1890 containing shorthand portions of Isaiah, ms. Heb. e. 30, ff. 48-49 (2604), were dated to the 12th century.46 Like most nineteenth-century visitors to St. Catherine’s monastery, Cowley probably stopped in Cairo, but it remains unclear how he knew for sure his fragments were “from the Geniza”. The Count d’Hulst was still searching for the find spot in 1894, and so Cowley most likely assumed the “Genizah” provenience later based on association with other shorthand Bible fragments in the collection.

    11) Bought from Wertheimer, 1896 (from the Geniza)

    38Two payments were made to Wertheimer in 1896 (one on July 10 and another on November 27), as well as three payments in 1897.47 The catalogue, however, only mentions materials acquired in 1896, including one volume of fragments “from the Geniza” and two manuscripts. The manuscripts comprised a copy of Ḥunaīn ibn Isḥāq’s introduction to Galen (17 ff.) and a copy of Ibn al-Ğazzar’s Viaticum (121 ff.). Ms. Heb. f. 54 (2843), the one volume of fragments designated as “from the Geniza”, contains an incomplete liturgy of the “Singalese” (Sinhalese or Ceylonese) Jewish rite (64 ff.).

    12) From the Geniza, 1896

    39Two volumes in the online version of the catalogue are labelled as “from the Geniza, 1896”, without seller or donor information, these are: ms. Heb. a. 3 (2873) with 46 items, and ms. Heb. e. 82 (2801), with three items. The items in ms. Heb. a. 3 can be largely classified as “Documents”. One record, however, a Ketubbah (marriage contract) from Tangier, Morocco is dated 1848. Given the challenges of accessing the Ben Ezra Synagogue Genizah in the mid to late-19th century due to repair work,48 it seems more reasonable to suppose that it was added to materials circulating in the marketplace only after Genizah materials were sold to dealers in the 1890s, and only after fragments with a “Genizah” provenance became a sought-after commodity.

    40The fragments in ms. Heb. e. 82 comprise various different editions of the text Megillat Zuṭa ha-Raša’ (an historical composition in imitation of Megillat Purim) acquired by the Bodleian at different times. Fragments of this text, ms. Heb. d. 35, ff. 1-3 (2780), were purchased from Chester in 1891, and then other non-matching fragments with other parts of the text, ms. Heb. e. 56, ff. 33-39 (2808), were purchased from Wertheimer in 1895. They were first published as a group by Neubauer in The Jewish Quarterly Review in 1896, together with text from five unprovenanced fragments (now ms. Heb. e. 82, ff. 13-17).49 One year later, in 1897, Neubauer published a notice in The Jewish Quarterly Review to inform readers that Wertheimer had lately supplied the first folio of the Megillah text.50 This was subsequently added to the other fragments to create the volume ms. Heb. e. 82, originally described in the published catalogue as “From the Geniza, 1891, 1895, and 1896”.

    3. Manuscript fragments acquired directly from a find spot, 1896-1899

    1) Bought through the Rev. Prof. Sayce, 1896 (from the Geniza)

    41As described above, in March 1895, the Rev. Prof. A. H. Sayce reported to the Bodleian that the Count d’Hulst had discovered a “subterranean place”, from which the manuscripts “have all come”.51 Negotiations with the “three heads of the community” were slow. In addition, it appears that the fragments had been moved from the subterranean place to a house, and the caretaker of the synagogue was now smuggling them out of the house to sell to d’Hulst. When Sayce communicated with Neubauer during the Passover holiday in May of that year, the house was full of people thus curtailing the smuggling activities. Sayce and d’Hulst were both leaving for England, which added a further delay. One box had already been dispatched through shipping agency Large & Co. bearing the label “waste paper” so as not to alert customs.52 Sayce was only able to send a second box one meter long and half-meter high box eight months later towards the end of November 1895.53 He also estimated that three other similar-sized boxes would be needed to ship the other manuscripts, but he declared that they would send them on together to make the shipment cheaper. Thus, a third instalment (of unknown size and quantity) was shipped to Oxford sometime in late January or early February 1896. A payment was registered to Sayce on October 18, 1895 (probably a pre-payment for the November box) for seven British pounds, and then on June 19, 1896 he was paid ten British pounds (possibly a reimbursement for the January boxes). Much of this material was later rejected, and the “useless fragments” were sold to Elkan Nathan Adler on January 25, 1897 for five British pounds, i.e., approximately one third of the original cost.54

    42From these consignments, the Bodleian retained just 1108 items, a total of 2730 folios, which were bound into 35 volumes. 49% of these items were on paper, 51% on vellum, and 0.5% were of mixed materials. According to the catalogue description, most of the items were in a poor condition (85%) with over one third of them (39%) showing some signs of staining. The fact that these selected items are of poor physical quality suggests that the rejected portion may have been in even worse condition.

    43The contents of the selected portions of the Sayce/d’Hulst hoard can be broadly designated into fifteen broad descriptive categories, including one Palimpsest, ms. Heb. e. 73, ff. 42-43 (2827), and one Samaritan commentary on Exodus in Arabic script, ms. Heb. d. 64, f. 84 (2822). The largest proportion of items fall into the broad category of Documents (26%) followed by Rabbinical Literature (23%). Forty-one items (4%) are described as having Yemenite script. One item, an unidentified piece of Judeo-Arabic writing, bears the date 1646; three other items (a letter, a deed and a document of divorce written at Cairo) reveal 18th century dates.

    44In spite of the selection process that shaped this sub-collection, we can still see differences between this acquisition and the earlier ones. Accordingly, there is a noticeable decrease in the number of multi-folio items: 30% of Chester’s 1891 consignment comprised items of four or more folios; this consignment has just 11%. However, in terms of their overall poor condition and the relative preponderance of documentary material, the items in this sub-collection resemble those donated from the Egypt Exploration Fund in 1890.

    2) Bought through the Rev. Prof. Sayce, 1899 (from the Geniza)

    45In 1898, the Bodleian commissioned the Count d’Hulst to conduct excavations near the Ben Ezra Synagogue in an attempt to retrieve Genizah fragments discarded during the synagogue renovations. Payments were made to d’Hulst on March 4, 1898 for four British pounds, five shillings and sixpence (as well as the cost of a telegram), and on May 20, 1898 for twenty British pounds, sixteen shillings and eight pence. Yet, almost one year later (on March 25, 1899), the Bodleian recorded a “sale of waste” to Elkan N. Adler for almost as much as it cost to buy the material: twenty British pounds and seven shillings.55 In other words, the Bodleian kept only a tiny proportion of the materials excavated.

    46In 1900, the Bodleian Annual Report explained that “It was found that a very large proportion of the manuscript scraps dug up were quite without value […] consisting merely of verses of the Bible & c. in writing of no considerable antiquity […]”.56 Another explanation is found scored through in a draft letter from Nicholson to d’Hulst: “had they been offered to us for the same money they cost to recover, as a lot of miscellaneous fragments unconnected with the Geniza, I don’t think we should ever have dreamt of giving it”.57

    47Thus, according to the official report, the rejected fragments were just biblical fragments of no great age and to Nicholson’s mind, and according to what was believed to be “from the Geniza”, actually “unconnected” with the Geniza. In fact, only a mere 15 items (54 folios) are recorded as having been “bought through the Rev. Prof. Sayce, 1899 (from the Geniza)”. Of these few items, there are no Bible fragments, five (33%) can be broadly categorized as Documents and three (20%) as Liturgical. In contrast to earlier Genizah consignments, and despite having been selected, only two items are on vellum. Twelve items (80%) of this small sub-collection are described as damaged.

    3) From the Geniza, 1899

    48Two volumes, ms. Heb. b. 13 and ms. Heb. d. 68, comprising 68 items, a total of 145 folios, are designated as coming from the Genizah in 1899 without any seller or donor information. A few of the fragments can be joined to those acquired from Sayce in 1896. The shelfmark order also supports the idea that these fragments came in either as part of that acquisition or as part of the acquisition from Sayce in 1898. Like those sub-collections, the proportion of paper items is high (79%), as is the amount of damage present (84%). The fragments cover five broad categories of content, the largest number of which (44%) fall under the Documents category.

    4. Manuscript fragments acquired through antiquities dealers and other sources in the 20th century

    1) Bought in 1906 through J. Offord

    49After Chester and Sayce, the third largest shipment of Genizah fragments came to the Bodleian in the 20th century through the businessman, Egyptologist and collector Joseph Offord. In the letter that had accompanied his “box with Hebrew and Aramaic manuscripts”, Offord stated: “I do not think many more MSS from the Geniza will turn up, I saw Count d’Hulst who thinks that the store is quite exhausted”.58

    50From Joseph Offord’s letter to the Bodleian, it would seem that d’Hulst was somehow still connected with the Genizah purchase; yet, in a letter to McGill University two years earlier in 1904, Offord wrote that he had purchased Hebrew fragments from an Arab in Egypt in the winter of 1903-4.59 The dealer may have been Ali Abd el-Haj el-Gabri (aka Ali el-Arabi), who supplied biblical manuscripts to Charles Freer between 1906-1909, as well as manuscripts believed to be derived from the Ben Ezra Synagogue Genizah in 1908.60 The amount of material attributed to Offord represents only what was kept by the Bodleian. Just one year later, in 1907, “useless Hebrew fragments” were once again recorded as sold to Elkan Nathan Adler for the amount of one British pound and ten shillings.61 Since it follows the same pattern of the other two sales of “useless Hebrew fragments”, i.e., taking place one year after a large sight-unseen consignment reached the Library, it is likely that this 1907 sale got rid of the unwanted and rejected portions of Offord’s shipment.

    51Offord sold 713 items, totalling 932 folios, to the Bodleian, with an average of one to two folios per item. The fragments were bound into 15 volumes. 95% of these fragments were on paper and 89% of them have physical damage (37% are stained). The largest proportion of the fragments are Liturgical (37%); the next largest amounts fall under the categories of Documents (19%) and Judeo-Arabic Literature (17%), followed by Bible and Rabbinic Literature (10%). Nine of the items in this sub-collection are unidentified.

    52One of the fragments, ms. Heb. e. 94, ff. 9-14, part of a philosophical legal treatise in Judeo-Arabic, joins to fragments acquired from Christian David Ginsburg “by exchange” (ms. Heb. e. 105, ff. 45-46) and fragments (ms. Heb. e. 108, f. 34) “given by Cowley in 1910”. After examining them and cataloguing them at some point in the 1920s (the typescript was finished in c. 1929), Cowley declared that the Offord piece was “ultimately from the Geniza”, Ginsburg’s piece was “originally from the Geniza” and yet for his own piece he gave no such attribution.

    2) Acquired in 1906

    53One volume in the Bodleian Library, ms. Heb. g. 12, comprises 54 folios of liturgical fragments, in roughly equal amounts of paper and parchment, and showing various levels of damage. The volume was not included in Cowley’s typescript catalogue, and it is simply recorded in the card catalogue as having been acquired in 1906. No attribution to the Genizah is given. The fragments may have come from multiple sources and were bound together in 1906, or possibly, given the coincidence of date, the fragments came as part of the Joseph Offord acquisition.

    3) Bought in 1907 from J. H. Greenstone of Philadelphia

    54Rabbi Julius Hillel Greenstone (1873-1955) was an author and educator (Gratz College, 1905-1948) who, from 1902, ran a small bookstore out of his home. In 1920, he negotiated the sale of 312 Genizah fragments belonging to his brother-in-law, the jurist and scholar, David Werner Amram, with Dropsie College in Philadelphia.62 Amram had acquired his Genizah collection through dealers in Jerusalem.63 Ms. Heb. f. 98, a 157-folio liturgical manuscript purchased from J. H. Greenstone in 1907, and the fragments from its binding (ms. Heb. f. 98*), is not one of the items officially designated as “from the Geniza”, yet it is still included in the online catalogue of Genizah Fragments at the Bodleian Libraries.64 Its script style and method of using fragments in the binding, suggests that it is of Yemenite origin.65

    4) Fols. 1-32, from the Geniza

    55Folios 1-32 of ms. Heb. b. 17 are described in Cowley’s typescript catalogue as: “from the Geniza”, with the further explanation that they “had not been bound up” when the second volume of Neubauer and Cowley’s Catalogue of Hebrew Manuscripts was completed. According to the shelfmark sequence, the last bound volume of Hebrew fragments in the “b” series was ms. Heb. b. 13, comprising manuscripts that were acquired in 1899. This date also represents the year of Neubauer’s departure from the Library. The next bound volume in the series was ms. Heb. b. 18, acquired by exchange from C. D. Ginsburg at some point before 1910.

    56The fact that the 32 folios were bound together with four handwritten papers discovered “among Neubauer’s Library papers” (see below), suggests that they had been put aside by Neubauer for cataloguing and perhaps abandoned when his poor health necessitated retirement. They were probably rediscovered there by Cowley and bound up at some point before Ginsburg’s consignment.

    57All of the fragments in ms. Heb. b. 17, ff. 1-32 are biblical texts and all of them are in a very poor state of preservation, with a great deal of tearing and staining. The physical state of these fragments, and the fact that they were bound with other items found on Neubauer’s desk, suggests that they may have arrived as part of the 1896 or 1898 consignment from Sayce.

    5) Found Among Neubauer’s Library Papers

    58Bound in at the end of the volume, ms. Heb. b. 17, are four folios, ff. 33-36, that are noted as having been “found among Neubauer’s Library papers”. The four pages include handwritten notes on the Talmud, transcriptions of Greek literary texts, and a handwritten list of Hebrew books in Spanish. Given the similarity in script to other handwritten notes penned by Neubauer, it is probable that he wrote all four folios himself.66

    6) From the Geniza, but unbound until 1911

    59According to Cowley’s typescript catalogue entry, the supplier of the fragments in ms. Heb. c. 51 was unknown and yet the Genizah provenance was clear: “These 20 leaves came from the Geniza, but were left unbound until 1911”. However, based on the shelfmark order, it seems more likely that the fragments in ms. Heb. c. 51 were acquired and bound up at some point after Joseph Offord supplied the fragments bound as ms. Heb. c. 50 in 1906 and some time before the fragments in ms. Heb. c. 52 were given by exchange from C. D. Ginsburg (prior to 1910).

    60These fifteen items, a total of 20 folios, can be categorized as mostly biblical texts, with more than half on vellum, and over half injured, obliterated or stained. Given the order of the shelfmark and the state of the fragments, it thus seems most likely that they were supplied by Offord in 1906, and perhaps set aside as part of the process of sorting fragments to keep and reject.

    7) Acquired by Exchange from C. D. Ginsburg

    61During the first decade of the 20th century, the Bodleian acquired a small collection of 123 items, totalling 569 folios, by exchange from the scholar Christian David Ginsburg.67 The order in which they were bound (i.e., according to their volume numbers) suggests that they were added to the collection after Offord’s collection arrived in 1906 and before Cowley donated fragments in 1910 (see below). Most were on paper (69%), with many showing signs of damage (80%), particularly tearing and staining. The content can be divided into nine broad categories: the majority of the fragments falling into the categories of Rabbinic Literature (38 items) and Bible (35 items).

    62Eight of the eleven volumes attributed to Ginsburg are accorded some sort of Genizah provenance, either as a firm attribution “from the Geniza” or else in some other noncommittal way. Thus, for two of the volumes, mss Heb. c. 52-53, Cowley determined that the fragments (mostly Bible and Rabbinical Literature) were “ultimately from the Geniza”. With regard to ms. Heb. e. 104, a 32-leaf medical work, he was more speculative and described it as “probably from the Geniza”. Ms. Heb. d. 73 comprises mostly biblical and liturgical fragments, as well as eleven fragments which are described as “business letters in Arabic” and dated to 1808. One fragment out of the eleven has a postscript in Spanish, and an unidentified address in Egypt. Cowley described this entire volume as comprising fragments that were “mostly from the Geniza”. In cataloguing ms. Heb. e. 105, he noted that 49 of its 55 folios were “originally from the Geniza”. These 49 fragments had been bound together with six folios found elsewhere (see the separate sections “Found in the Hebrew Room” and “Found Loose in ms. Opp. Add. Qu. 151” below).

    63However, three of the volumes acquired through exchange with Ginsburg, ms. Heb. c. 54, and ms. Heb. f. 104-105, were not ascribed to the Genizah find spot. The fragments in volume ms. Heb. c. 54 are mostly Bible and Rabbinical Literature, but they also include fragments (ff. 8-9) which Cowley believed came from a binding. Ms. Heb. f. 104 contains an 89-leaf Kabbalistic work from 1854, and ms. Heb. f. 105 comprises “Miscellaneous fragments: on paper” with a variety of content in Sephardi, Persian, Italian, Maghrebi, and Yemenite scripts. All three volumes are included in Bodleian’s online Genizah database.

    8) Found in the Hebrew Room

    64As mentioned above, three folios in ms. Heb. e. 105 were found in the Hebrew Room and bound in a volume together with fragments acquired from C. D. Ginsburg. One fragment contains a portion of an unidentified Rabbinical text, and the other fragment some quotations from Psalm 22:11, which Cowley believed was from a prayer-book. A third fragment comprises a Persian translation of Ḥad Gadia which was probably printed in Bombay in the 19th century. An exact copy also appears in the Genizah collection at the Jewish Theological Seminary Library,68 which was originally part of the private collection assembled by Elkan Nathan Adler. And to further complicate the issue of provenance, parts of Adler’s collection were derived through the Bodleian’s sale of “useless Hebrew manuscripts”.

    9) Found Loose in ms. Opp. Add. 4o 151

    65Three other folios in ms. Heb. e. 105 (ff. 53-55) are described in the catalogue as “found loose in ms. Opp. Add. Qu. 151, but have no connexion with that volume”.69 The folios comprise parts of a letter written in Hebrew (with some European shorthand) in the 17th century which had been sent from Siena to London. The fact that they were later bound up with some fragments “found in the Hebrew Room” and others attributed to the exchange with C. D. Ginsburg, suggests that they had all been rediscovered at the same time and thus bound up together regardless of provenance. The shelfmark order of the volume comes before a volume of fragments attributed to Cowley in 1910 suggesting that the binding of the fragments took place at some point during the first decade of the 20th century.

    10) Given by A. Cowley in 1910

    66According to his typescript catalogue, Cowley added 174 fragments, a total of 423 folios, to the Bodleian’s Hebrew Manuscript Collection in 1910. Most of the items (73%) are on paper and most (87%) show some sign of damage, according to the catalogue. The contents can be divided into eleven broad categories, with Bible representing the highest number (25%). Cowley’s manuscripts were bound into nine volumes: ms. Heb. c. 55-56, ms. Heb. d. 79-81, ms. Heb. e. 106-108, and ms. Heb. f. 106. Five volumes (ms. Heb. d. 79-81, ms. Heb. e. 107, and Heb. f. 106) are described as “from the Geniza”; whereas the 32 leaves of Bible fragments and Rabbinical Literature in ms. Heb. c. 55, in a departure from the usual “from the Geniza” statement, are labelled as “originally from the Geniza” [emphasis mine]. Ms. Heb. e. 106, a 63-folio copy of Maimonides’ Mišneh Torah in Yemenite script from 1636, with a note added in 1728, is designated with less certainty as “probably from the Geniza” (emphasis mine).

    67The manuscript fragments in ms. Heb. e. 108, ff. 1-69, are simply described as “given in 1910 by A. Cowley”, without any mention of the Genizah, and ff. 70-71 are given the provenance statement “bought thro’ B. P. Grenfell, from a dealer in Cairo”. A pencil inscription on ff. 70-71 reveals the purchase details that it was brought from “B. P. Grenfell 30. 10. 1899”. Bernard Pyne Grenfell, a papyrologist, is known for his discovery (together with his partner Arthur Surridge Hunt) of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri. In his searches for additional papyri fragments over the course of several decades, Grenfell developed strong ties with Egyptian antiquities dealers.70 He is also linked to three Hebrew fragments in the papyrology collection at the University of Michigan (P. Mich. Inv. 531-533), which are noted as having been purchased in Egypt by Bernard P. Grenfell and Francis W. Kelsey in March-April 1920.71

    68The fragments in ms. Heb. c. 56, mostly documents, are simply described in Cowley’s typescript catalogue as “21 leaves given in 1910 by A. Cowley” without the Genizah provenance label. The dearth of information surrounding the provenance of this 1910 donation is surprising given that Cowley was both the donor and the cataloguer of these fragments. The oversight is attributable, no doubt, to overwork: after becoming Bodleian Librarian in 1919, in addition to publishing several major scholarly works, Cowley’s time and attention to cataloguing Hebrew fragments was limited.72

    11) Given (through F. Ll. Griffith) in 1911 by G. W. Murray

    69Ms. Heb. e. 110, an Arabic commentary on Leviticus, comprises eight folios, as well as a penciled note on an Egyptian Survey Department envelope by the French Egyptologist, Gaston Maspero, and a letter to Cowley from Francis Llewellyn Griffith on its provenance. Griffith claimed that a friend (George William Murray—a Director of Egypt’s Desert Surveys) in the Survey Department had obtained the fragments from the Fayum. Cowley’s catalogue notes the provenance as “Given (through F. Ll. Griffith) in 1911 by G. W. Murray, who obtained them in the Fayum. Probably from the Geniza as no. 2680.11”. In terms of content and script, the manuscript belongs with ms. Heb. d. 34, ff. 59-68 (2680.11) which was “bought from the Rev. G. J. Chester, 1891 (from the Geniza)”. Chester bought antiquities, especially papyrus, from dealers in the Fayyum, which could explain the connection with respect to the location of the local supplier but not necessarily regarding the original find spot.73

    12) Given by A. Cowley, from the Geniza, except f. 18 which came from North Africa74

    70Ms. Heb. f. 107 was a gift to the Bodleian from A. E. Cowley. The date of acquisition is not recorded but it can be surmised from the Bodleian’s method of binding fragments in order of acquisition that these fragments were given at some point between Cowley’s 1910 donation of ms. Heb. f. 106 and the anonymous donation of a Mošeh ibn Tibbon manuscript, ms. Heb. f. 109 (not included in the Genizah collection) in 1914.75 Ms. Heb. f. 107 comprises 36 items (55 ff.), of which 75% are on paper, and 67% damaged. Most of the items are Liturgical (56%), with roughly equal amounts of Bible, Documents and Rabbinic Literature (8-10%).

    71Cowley noted that all of the fragments in ms. Heb. f. 107 were “from the Geniza” except for “f. 18, which came from North Africa”. No other provenance information is supplied with f. 18 or any indication given as to how or why it became bound up with the other fragments in this volume. Again, as the donor, it is curious that Cowley did not supply more details regarding the purchase or discovery of this manuscript, or the others which he confidently asserts are “from the Geniza”.

    13) Given in […] by A. Cowley, all (?) from the Geniza76

    72Ms. Heb. f. 108, comprising 33 items, a total of 67 folios, was also a gift to the Bodleian from A. E. Cowley. Half of the items are on paper, and 73% show some sign of damage (according to the Catalogue description); the largest proportion can be broadly categorized as “Liturgical” (45%). However, with regards to provenance, Cowley appears not only to have doubted the Genizah provenance of some of the fragments in this volume, recording the description: “All (?) from the Geniza”, but also seems to have forgotten how he obtained them and exactly when he gave the manuscripts to the Library.

    73At the end of the volume, Cowley noted that six of the leaves (ms. Heb. f. 108, ff. 63-67) appear to have been removed “from a binding”. The Bodleian online database also includes the description of an additional folio (f. 68) that isn’t mentioned in Cowley’s typescript, but which is clearly bound up at the end of the ms. Heb. f. 108 volume. A pencilled inscription on the manuscript (also in the database) describes the fragment as “found in Opp. Fol. 823. X”. Thus, it seems clear that during the process of binding and cataloguing the Hebrew fragments acquired in the 20th century, Cowley had gathered together all the loose and “Geniza-like” pieces he could find, including those in his own possession and those that had previously surfaced or been found in other locations.

    14) Given in 1915 by A. Cowley, who bought the volume from a dealer

    74The latest dated acquisitions in Cowley’s unpublished typescript of “Additional Geniza Fragments” (and included in the Bodleian online database) are from 1915. They comprise two volumes: ms. Heb. f. 110, formulae for documents in Yemenite script (10 folios); and ms. Heb. f. 111, a book of hymns in Yemenite script datable to the 18th century and on paper bearing a European watermark (135 folios). Both volumes are catalogued with the provenance statement “Given in 1915 by A. Cowley, who bought the volume from a dealer”, but without any details about the dealer or mention of the Geniza. Regarding the date of acquisition, the finding aid for the Bodleian’s collection of “Miscellaneous Hebrew Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library” notes that some Hebrew manuscripts were acquired from the Egypt Exploration Fund in 1890 and in 1915, and thus it seems likely that someone connected to the Fund may have provided these manuscripts (perhaps in a similar way to Cowley’s 1911 acquisition through Murray).77

    5. Conclusion

    75This analysis of the Bodleian Genizah sub-collections according to provenance enables comparisons between the fragments with a known find spot in or near the Ben Ezra Synagogue and those that arrived from Egypt or elsewhere in the Near East via a third or fourth party. As this article has demonstrated, the idea of a single, original find spot, i.e., the Genizah of the Ben Ezra Synagogue, for most of the fragments is ubiquitous in the catalogue and, even when the supplier is unknown, many fragments of dubious provenance have been labelled as “from the Geniza”. Nevertheless, the Bodleian Genizah collection is also one of the best collections for mining Genizah provenance data given the method of binding and shelf marking, and since at least some minimal information was recorded with each purchase/acquisition, which can be further supported through the Library’s own records and archives of correspondence.

    76In spite of the fact that the two earliest sub-collections (Chester, 1890 and Egypt Exploration Fund, 1890) were recovered within the same time frame and in close proximity to one another, there are differences between them in terms of quality and content. The fragments taken by Chester from the newly exposed room comprise a greater number of folios, vellum and, overall, they are in much better condition than those that were gathered from outside the synagogue. This may be explained by the fact that Chester took greater pains to select substantial-looking vellum fragments. The larger percentage of documentary material in the Egypt Exploration Fund consignment might also be due to a random selection process that favoured quantity over quality.

    77Nevertheless, these two early sub-collections, with a known provenance of proximity to the Ben Ezra Synagogue, may provide some insights into the make-up of the synagogue’s own genizot before they became mixed up with fragments from other genizot in the region that circulated through the antiquities market. Certainly, in terms of similarities, neither sub-collection contains any dated manuscripts from after the 14th century (although the sample is small). By way of contrast, the collection selected from the boxes sent by “Rev. Prof. Sayce, 1896” contains at least five dated manuscripts from the 16th-18th centuries. An 18th century manuscript is also recorded in the “A. Cowley in 1910” sub-collection, and two pieces bearing 18th century dates are in the “By exchange from C. D. Ginsburg” sub-collection. The two early sub-collections do not comprise the broader range of materials that Chester’s local dealer supplied to him the following year between 1891 and 1892 (see the “Broad Categories Results” worksheet). While the Egypt Exploration Fund portion shows a greater amount of damage, none of the fragments are described as “stained”, and only 3% of Chester’s 1890 fragments are described as such.

    78The fragments that Chester subsequently acquired through a dealer in 1891-1892 continued to be in better shape, multi-folio and with low proportions of documentary material when compared to later collections. Based on an investigation into the archival evidence, it does not appear that much was rejected from Chester’s offerings. On the other hand, the collections acquired from Wertheimer between 1892 and 1896 appear to have involved a much greater level of selection at the Oxford end. Wertheimer’s sub-collections are completely lacking in documentary material, even though lists held at Cambridge University Library show that he did indeed offer such fragments for sale. A scrutiny of the data associated with Wertheimer’s sub-collections also confirms that his materials contained a significantly higher proportion of fragments identified as having “Yemenite” script than those found in the other sub-collections. This could point to a different source for these particular fragments, either Wertheimer’s partner, who was believed to be Yemenite, or from another member or members of the Yemenite community in Jerusalem.

    79This analysis likewise reveals how the materials first discovered near or under the Ben Ezra Synagogue in 1895 (Rev. Prof. Sayce, 1896) differ dramatically from the materials that arrived in Oxford prior to the rebuilding of the synagogue in 1892. The number of single-folio, fragmentary pieces is far higher in the later period; the state of preservation much degraded with greatly increased amounts of staining, and greater proportions of paper to vellum. The condition of these fragments could have resulted during a period of multiple relocations and exposure to various environmental elements, or it might indicate that some of the materials were added in from other genizot, such as the Bassatine cemetery or other medieval synagogues like the 13th century Maimonides Synagogue in the Haret al-Yahud, Cairo, or the al-’Amšātī Synagogue in al-Maḥalla al-Kubrā, which was renovated in the 1880s.78

    80The “Rev. Prof. Sayce, 1896” sub-collection further differs from the earlier collections in terms of its content, revealing a broader range of materials, as well as significantly increased amounts of documentary materials. The differences in subject matter and state of preservation are even more striking when one considers that this sub-collection represents only a small portion of what was originally shipped to Oxford. In regard to its content and state, as well as in terms of its origins and fate, Sayce’s sub-collection greatly resembles the collection sent by Joseph Offord in 1906.

    81An analysis of the other sub-collections acquired in the 20th century reveals how materials of so-called Genizah provenance were mixed in and confused with materials of various other known and unknown origins. The entries in Cowley’s typescript catalogue further demonstrate that the application of a Genizah provenance to Hebrew fragments became almost second nature and even when little or nothing was known about a fragment’s origins, phrases like “originally from the Geniza”, “ultimately from the Geniza” or “probably from the Geniza” were still added to its description.

    82In sum, this analysis of the Genizah fragments in the Bodleian demonstrates the great complexity of the “Cairo Genizah” story and the fallacy of a single find spot for all the Hebrew fragments around the world designated as “from the Geniza”. The notion of “the Geniza”, first promulgated by David Kaufmann in 1897, would eventually lead to a kind of collection-blind state whereby the multi-faceted histories of the Genizah sub-collections were treated, for the most part, as marginal to the overarching Cairo Genizah discovery narrative.79 This treatment has overlooked the fact that the very relevant history of how all of these fragments were found and dispersed around the world does not begin with the exciting and romantic escapades of Lewis, Gibson and Schechter, but rather resides in the detailed analysis of each sub-collection. The author hopes that, having provided an exemplar of Genizah sub-collection data mining, this method, and the data itself, can be used or emulated by other researchers to explore the physical make-up of all the Genizah sub-collections in greater depth, as well as draw additional (or different) conclusions about the history of the Cairo Genizot from any patterns that may be detected.

    Notes de bas de page

    1This paper refers to the Bodleian Libraries when discussing the collection in its current setting, but refers to the Bodleian Library (or, the Library) in reference to the historical acquisition of the Genizah fragments. It also uses the spelling of “Genizah” except where it appears as “Geniza” in quoted references from published texts.

    2For more on the history of the discoveries prior to 1892 and between 1892 and 1897, see R. Jefferson, “Deconstructing ‘the Cairo Genizah’”.

    3For an example of attitudes towards the Genizah discovery, see the description A. Marx, “An Important Jewish Cultural Anniversary”, p. 16: “The year 1946 marks the fiftieth anniversary of one of the great romances in bookland”.

    4See R. Jefferson, “Dangerous Liaisons in Cairo” for an example of tracing Genizah provenance, and the provenance of provenance, through a comparison between information hidden in plain sight in historical publications and that hidden in archives.

    5L. H. Nicholas, “Preface”, pp. x–xii.

    6N. Brodie, “Uncovering the Antiquities Market”, p. 248.

    7See the cross-disciplinary range of provenance research articles in J. C. Milosch, N. Pearce, Collecting and Provenance.

    8A. Neubauer, A. E. Cowley, Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, vol. II, p. IV.

    9N. Vidro, “The Genizah Collection”, pp. 231–254 supplies the latest and most in-depth description of the Bodleian Genizah collection as a whole to date, including an analysis of its content and some of its treasures.

    10See the “About us” section of the online database of Genizah Fragments at the Bodleian Libraries: https://genizah.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/about.

    11To facilitate this analysis, an Excel workbook was compiled using the information provided by the Bodleian’s online database, Genizah Fragments at the Bodleian Libraries (https://genizah.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/). It comprises data copied directly from the Library’s catalogues, as well as some results tables and graphs at the end. The workbook, entitled Data Analysis of the Genizah Fragments at the Bodleian Libraries (https://ufdc.ufl.edu/fr/IR00011094/00001) has been placed in the University of Florida’s Institutional Repository for ease of reference.

    12For more details of Chester’s antiquarian activities, see R. Jefferson, “‘What Cannot Often Be Obtainable’”.

    13Ibid., p. 274.

    14Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodleian Library Records, ledger c. 59.

    15Every shelfmark cited in this article is accompanied by the catalogue number in parentheses; for example, ms. Heb. b. 4 (2611), except for those catalogued in the Cowley 1929 typescript which do not have catalogue numbers.

    16Arthur Ernest Cowley began work on the catalogue in 1896. Neubauer had prepared material up to column 226 before his retirement in 1899. Later acquisitions were catalogued solely by Cowley, and he completed the entire catalogue, including its introduction and indexes, by 1906. See A. Neubauer, A. E. Cowley, Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, vol. II, p. IV.

    17Percentages are rounded up to the nearest whole number.

    18The broad subject areas have been capitalized to distinguish them as the categories devised for this analysis.

    19See R. Jefferson, “A Genizah Secret”.

    20Chester also sent a palimpsest fragment which appears to have been catalogued separately (see “From the Geniza [1892?])” below.

    21Some of the letters preserved in the Bodleian Library Records (Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodleian Library Records, ledger e. 479) indicate his intention to mail manuscripts, but this does not offer firm proof that he did so. One batch of three packets was delayed until his return to London in April 1891.

    22See S. C. Reif, Hebrew Manuscripts at Cambridge University Library.

    23The worksheet is titled “From the Geniza (1892)” as Excel prevents the use of question marks in tabs.

    24A. Neubauer, A. E. Cowley, Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, vol. II, p. 46 and 59, as well as the shelfmark and provenance list on xvi.

    25G. H. Gwilliam, The Palestinian Version, p. V.

    26R. Jefferson, “‘What Cannot Often Be Obtainable’”, pp. 280–81.

    27G. H. Gwilliam et al., Biblical and Patristic Relics, p. 5. For more details concerning the discovery of palimpsests in this period, see R. Vollandt, “Palimpsests from the Cairo Genizah”.

    28Count Riamo d’Hulst to E. W. B. Nicholson, March 17 1898, see Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodleian Library Records, ledger d. 1084: “Prof. Sayce asked me to try and find out what had become of the Cairo MS. & I have been connected with the matter ever since”.

    29R. Jefferson, “The Cairo Genizah Unearthed”, pp. 179–180.

    30Gwilliam had also halted publication in order to include recent finds in Sinai. More details will be available in R. Vollandt.

    31A. Neubauer, A. E. Cowley, Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, vol. II, p. IV. The emphasis is mine.

    32Ms. Heb. d. 52 (2650).

    33The catalogue entries for Wertheimer’s manuscript offerings from 1892 and 1893 are: ms. Heb. d. 49 (2615), ms. Heb. d. 50 (2844), ms. Heb. d. 51 (2742), ms. Heb. d. 56 (2629), ms. Heb. d. 57 (2745), ms. Heb. d. 58 (2658), ms. Heb. g. 5 (2719).

    34The signature was read as Yakob Megas Kasurelka (see S. J. Ben Zvi, “Whose Geniza?”, p. 66), and he was identified by the Wertheimer family as a Yemenite trader. The name Kasurelka is unusual, however. An alternative reading could be Yaakov Moshe Kasorla, a Jerusalemite Sephardi who was sent to Egypt as an emissary in 1891-92, see [Anonymous], “Divre yeme ha-šavu’a”.

    35Wertheimer’s letters to Cambridge are preserved in the manuscript binders (see Cambridge, University Library, mss Or. 1080.2 and Or. 1080.13) and in T-S Misc. 34.

    36See E. Amster, “Ottoman Science in the Maghrib” for a study of the work of al-Antaki and its impact around North Africa and the Mediterranean.

    37S. Baronian, F. C. Conybeare, Catalogue of the Armenian Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, pp. 249–50.

    38See A catalogue of Georgian Manuscripts at the Bodleian Libraries. URL: https://georgian.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/catalog/manuscript_7.

    39Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodleian Library Records, ledger c. 59, as mentioned above, notes several payments to Wertheimer in 1894.

    40R. P. Blake, “Khanmeti Palimpsest Fragments”, pp. 225–72. In H. H. E. Craster, History of the Bodleian Library, p. 310, the palimpsest is erroneously described as forming part of the Sir Oliver Wardrop collection of Georgian manuscripts (acquired 1910).

    41A. Neubauer, A. E. Cowley, Hebrew Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, vol. II, p. I [Introductory Note].

    42R. P. Blake, “Khanmeti Palimpsest Fragments”, p. 228.

    43Another Jerusalem-based bookseller and dealer, S. Raffalovich, is credited with supplying the British Museum with most of its Genizah fragments. Solomon Schechter also acquired additional fragments in Hebron and there is no evidence to suggest that they were catalogued separately from his Cairo haul (see [Anonymous], “Our Jerusalem Letter”, p. 22).

    44Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodleian Library Records, ledger c. 59.

    45[Anonymous], “Short Notices”, p. 34: “Mr. Cowley and Mr. Stenning, and the Rev. G. A. Cooke go to Palestine […] Mr. Cowley and Mr. Stenning are to pass some time at the Mount Sinai Monastery, and hope to find their recompense in the books and manuscripts there”. Thanks to Ronny Vollandt for alerting me to Cowley’s activities in Egypt.

    46A. Neubauer, “Literary Gleanings”, pp. 361–64.

    47Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodleian Library Records, ledger c. 59.

    48In relating his excursions to the Ben Ezra Synagogue in 1864, Jacob Saphir described how the dust and dirt caused by recent building renovations impeded his access to the manuscripts (see J. Saphir, Even Safir, c. 21v).

    49A. Neubauer, “Egyptian Fragments”, p. 543 mentions that another fragment of the text belonged to Dr. Harkavy.

    50A. Neubauer, “Note on the Megillah”, p. 721.

    51See supra, footnote 20.

    52A. H. Sayce to A. Neubauer, May 7, 1895. Oxford, Bodleian Library Records, ledger c. 950: Correspondence and papers regarding purchases 1654-1910. Thank you to Michael Press for sharing his discovery of this letter with me.

    53A. H. Sayce to A. Neubauer, November 29, 1895. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodleian Library Registers, ledger d. 1080. Sayce did not share their names, but in another letter to E. W. B. Nicholson he mentioned payments to “the old Rabbi & his colleagues”. See Oxford, Bodleian Library, ms. Eng. Misc. d. 69, f. 70.

    54Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodleian Library Records, ledger c. 37. See also R. Jefferson, “The Cairo Genizah Unearthed”, pp. 179–181.

    55Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodleian Library Records, ledger c. 37.

    56[Anonymous], “Annual Report”, p. 547.

    57R. Jefferson, “The Cairo Genizah Unearthed”, pp. 186–87. The emphasis is mine.

    58J. Offord to A. E. Cowley, January 8, 1906. See Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodleian Library Records, ledger d. 1083. According to A. E. Cowley, Additional Geniza Fragments, the manuscripts arrived at the Bodleian on January 11.

    59For more on Offord and his manuscript sales, see J. Kalman, “A Cairo Geniza Fragment”, pp. 119–42.

    60A. C. Gunter, A Collector’s Journey, p. 104.

    61Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodleian Library Records, ledger c. 37.

    62Cyrus Adler to Benzion Halper, July 2, 1920. See Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania, Library at the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, Cyrus Adler Papers, Box 45, folder 22.

    63D. W. Amram, “Two Legal Documents”, pp. 115–16.

    64The asterisk has been added to the shelfmark in the online catalogue to distinguish the binding matter from the rest of the manuscript.

    65Folio 45 of the manuscript is described in the typescript catalogue has bearing the date 460 or 1700 A.D. Cowley supposed that this may have been “the date of writing, which at any rate is not much later”.

    66Compare, for example, Neubauer’s handwritten note to the Société de Géographie, which can be read in Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Société de géographie: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8450787s.

    67At this time, I have not been able to uncover information about what this exchange involved or how Ginsburg originally acquired his Hebrew fragments.

    68New York, Jewish Theological Seminary, ms. 1697.12. See a digitized copy in the Judaica DH at the Penn Libraries: https://medium.com/@judaicadh/talking-the-talk-chad-gad-yah-d1ce7abadf0a.

    69A. E. Cowley, Additional Geniza Fragments, p. 71.

    70The Oxyrhynchus papyri have their own provenance issues: in addition to the materials he excavated at Oxyrhynchus (el-Bahnasa), Grenfell also purchased papyri from the antiquities market and did not always clearly distinguish between them. See B. Nongbri, God’s Library, p. 223.

    71The University of Michigan Papyrology Collection: Advanced Papyrological Information System (APIS UM): https://quod.lib.umich.edu/a/apis.

    72For more biographical information, see S. Tomlinson, “Cowley, Sir Arthur Ernest”.

    73See H. H. E. Craster, History of the Bodleian Library, pp. 214–15.

    74This is the provenance description used in the Bodleian online catalogue. I used this phraseology in my own spreadsheet database to differentiate between the other Cowley sub-collections.

    75H. H. E. Craster, History of the Bodleian Library, p. 211 reveals that the Genizah fragments “were bound up in volumes as they reached the library, so almost every leaf had to be separately described”.

    76This title is reproduced exactly as it reads in Cowley’s typescript catalogue with the lacuna after “given in”.

    77See the acquisition information description in the “Miscellaneous Hebrew manuscripts in the Bodleian Library” finding aid: https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/data/gb161-mss.heb.;mss.hebrewrolls;mss.opp.add.;mss.opp.add.4octavo;mss.opp.add.octavo.

    78[Anonymous], “Mahalla al Kobra Synagogue”.

    79D. Kaufmann, “Or ha-ganuz”, pp. 385–393 and 481–490 was the first scholar to link the visits to genizot by Simon van Gelderen and Jacob Saphir to his own collection of Genizah fragments and to Solomon Schechter’s discovery in the Ben Ezra Synagogue, and he was the first to use the phrase “הגניזה” to describe the Ben Ezra Synagogue Genizah. The same narrative was repeated and expanded some months later in a section of an article subtitled “The Genizah” by Elkan Nathan Adler (see E. N. Adler, “An Eleventh Century Introduction”, pp. 671–673). In 1906, the same scholar formalized the idea of “the Cairo Genizah” in the Jewish Encyclopedia.

    Auteur

    • Rebecca J. W. Jefferson

      Rebecca J. W. Jefferson est directrice de la Isser and Rae Price Library of Judaica de l’université de Floride et joint faculty member du Center for Jewish Studies. Ses recherches se concentrent sur l’histoire de la provenance des collections de la Genizah du Caire. Dernier livre publié : The Cairo Genizah and the Age of Discovery in Egypt. The History and Provenance of a Jewish Archive, Londres, I. B. Tauris, 2022.

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    1This paper refers to the Bodleian Libraries when discussing the collection in its current setting, but refers to the Bodleian Library (or, the Library) in reference to the historical acquisition of the Genizah fragments. It also uses the spelling of “Genizah” except where it appears as “Geniza” in quoted references from published texts.

    2For more on the history of the discoveries prior to 1892 and between 1892 and 1897, see R. Jefferson, “Deconstructing ‘the Cairo Genizah’”.

    3For an example of attitudes towards the Genizah discovery, see the description A. Marx, “An Important Jewish Cultural Anniversary”, p. 16: “The year 1946 marks the fiftieth anniversary of one of the great romances in bookland”.

    4See R. Jefferson, “Dangerous Liaisons in Cairo” for an example of tracing Genizah provenance, and the provenance of provenance, through a comparison between information hidden in plain sight in historical publications and that hidden in archives.

    5L. H. Nicholas, “Preface”, pp. x–xii.

    6N. Brodie, “Uncovering the Antiquities Market”, p. 248.

    7See the cross-disciplinary range of provenance research articles in J. C. Milosch, N. Pearce, Collecting and Provenance.

    8A. Neubauer, A. E. Cowley, Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, vol. II, p. IV.

    9N. Vidro, “The Genizah Collection”, pp. 231–254 supplies the latest and most in-depth description of the Bodleian Genizah collection as a whole to date, including an analysis of its content and some of its treasures.

    10See the “About us” section of the online database of Genizah Fragments at the Bodleian Libraries: https://genizah.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/about.

    11To facilitate this analysis, an Excel workbook was compiled using the information provided by the Bodleian’s online database, Genizah Fragments at the Bodleian Libraries (https://genizah.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/). It comprises data copied directly from the Library’s catalogues, as well as some results tables and graphs at the end. The workbook, entitled Data Analysis of the Genizah Fragments at the Bodleian Libraries (https://ufdc.ufl.edu/fr/IR00011094/00001) has been placed in the University of Florida’s Institutional Repository for ease of reference.

    12For more details of Chester’s antiquarian activities, see R. Jefferson, “‘What Cannot Often Be Obtainable’”.

    13Ibid., p. 274.

    14Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodleian Library Records, ledger c. 59.

    15Every shelfmark cited in this article is accompanied by the catalogue number in parentheses; for example, ms. Heb. b. 4 (2611), except for those catalogued in the Cowley 1929 typescript which do not have catalogue numbers.

    16Arthur Ernest Cowley began work on the catalogue in 1896. Neubauer had prepared material up to column 226 before his retirement in 1899. Later acquisitions were catalogued solely by Cowley, and he completed the entire catalogue, including its introduction and indexes, by 1906. See A. Neubauer, A. E. Cowley, Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, vol. II, p. IV.

    17Percentages are rounded up to the nearest whole number.

    18The broad subject areas have been capitalized to distinguish them as the categories devised for this analysis.

    19See R. Jefferson, “A Genizah Secret”.

    20Chester also sent a palimpsest fragment which appears to have been catalogued separately (see “From the Geniza [1892?])” below.

    21Some of the letters preserved in the Bodleian Library Records (Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodleian Library Records, ledger e. 479) indicate his intention to mail manuscripts, but this does not offer firm proof that he did so. One batch of three packets was delayed until his return to London in April 1891.

    22See S. C. Reif, Hebrew Manuscripts at Cambridge University Library.

    23The worksheet is titled “From the Geniza (1892)” as Excel prevents the use of question marks in tabs.

    24A. Neubauer, A. E. Cowley, Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, vol. II, p. 46 and 59, as well as the shelfmark and provenance list on xvi.

    25G. H. Gwilliam, The Palestinian Version, p. V.

    26R. Jefferson, “‘What Cannot Often Be Obtainable’”, pp. 280–81.

    27G. H. Gwilliam et al., Biblical and Patristic Relics, p. 5. For more details concerning the discovery of palimpsests in this period, see R. Vollandt, “Palimpsests from the Cairo Genizah”.

    28Count Riamo d’Hulst to E. W. B. Nicholson, March 17 1898, see Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodleian Library Records, ledger d. 1084: “Prof. Sayce asked me to try and find out what had become of the Cairo MS. & I have been connected with the matter ever since”.

    29R. Jefferson, “The Cairo Genizah Unearthed”, pp. 179–180.

    30Gwilliam had also halted publication in order to include recent finds in Sinai. More details will be available in R. Vollandt.

    31A. Neubauer, A. E. Cowley, Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, vol. II, p. IV. The emphasis is mine.

    32Ms. Heb. d. 52 (2650).

    33The catalogue entries for Wertheimer’s manuscript offerings from 1892 and 1893 are: ms. Heb. d. 49 (2615), ms. Heb. d. 50 (2844), ms. Heb. d. 51 (2742), ms. Heb. d. 56 (2629), ms. Heb. d. 57 (2745), ms. Heb. d. 58 (2658), ms. Heb. g. 5 (2719).

    34The signature was read as Yakob Megas Kasurelka (see S. J. Ben Zvi, “Whose Geniza?”, p. 66), and he was identified by the Wertheimer family as a Yemenite trader. The name Kasurelka is unusual, however. An alternative reading could be Yaakov Moshe Kasorla, a Jerusalemite Sephardi who was sent to Egypt as an emissary in 1891-92, see [Anonymous], “Divre yeme ha-šavu’a”.

    35Wertheimer’s letters to Cambridge are preserved in the manuscript binders (see Cambridge, University Library, mss Or. 1080.2 and Or. 1080.13) and in T-S Misc. 34.

    36See E. Amster, “Ottoman Science in the Maghrib” for a study of the work of al-Antaki and its impact around North Africa and the Mediterranean.

    37S. Baronian, F. C. Conybeare, Catalogue of the Armenian Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, pp. 249–50.

    38See A catalogue of Georgian Manuscripts at the Bodleian Libraries. URL: https://georgian.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/catalog/manuscript_7.

    39Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodleian Library Records, ledger c. 59, as mentioned above, notes several payments to Wertheimer in 1894.

    40R. P. Blake, “Khanmeti Palimpsest Fragments”, pp. 225–72. In H. H. E. Craster, History of the Bodleian Library, p. 310, the palimpsest is erroneously described as forming part of the Sir Oliver Wardrop collection of Georgian manuscripts (acquired 1910).

    41A. Neubauer, A. E. Cowley, Hebrew Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, vol. II, p. I [Introductory Note].

    42R. P. Blake, “Khanmeti Palimpsest Fragments”, p. 228.

    43Another Jerusalem-based bookseller and dealer, S. Raffalovich, is credited with supplying the British Museum with most of its Genizah fragments. Solomon Schechter also acquired additional fragments in Hebron and there is no evidence to suggest that they were catalogued separately from his Cairo haul (see [Anonymous], “Our Jerusalem Letter”, p. 22).

    44Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodleian Library Records, ledger c. 59.

    45[Anonymous], “Short Notices”, p. 34: “Mr. Cowley and Mr. Stenning, and the Rev. G. A. Cooke go to Palestine […] Mr. Cowley and Mr. Stenning are to pass some time at the Mount Sinai Monastery, and hope to find their recompense in the books and manuscripts there”. Thanks to Ronny Vollandt for alerting me to Cowley’s activities in Egypt.

    46A. Neubauer, “Literary Gleanings”, pp. 361–64.

    47Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodleian Library Records, ledger c. 59.

    48In relating his excursions to the Ben Ezra Synagogue in 1864, Jacob Saphir described how the dust and dirt caused by recent building renovations impeded his access to the manuscripts (see J. Saphir, Even Safir, c. 21v).

    49A. Neubauer, “Egyptian Fragments”, p. 543 mentions that another fragment of the text belonged to Dr. Harkavy.

    50A. Neubauer, “Note on the Megillah”, p. 721.

    51See supra, footnote 20.

    52A. H. Sayce to A. Neubauer, May 7, 1895. Oxford, Bodleian Library Records, ledger c. 950: Correspondence and papers regarding purchases 1654-1910. Thank you to Michael Press for sharing his discovery of this letter with me.

    53A. H. Sayce to A. Neubauer, November 29, 1895. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodleian Library Registers, ledger d. 1080. Sayce did not share their names, but in another letter to E. W. B. Nicholson he mentioned payments to “the old Rabbi & his colleagues”. See Oxford, Bodleian Library, ms. Eng. Misc. d. 69, f. 70.

    54Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodleian Library Records, ledger c. 37. See also R. Jefferson, “The Cairo Genizah Unearthed”, pp. 179–181.

    55Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodleian Library Records, ledger c. 37.

    56[Anonymous], “Annual Report”, p. 547.

    57R. Jefferson, “The Cairo Genizah Unearthed”, pp. 186–87. The emphasis is mine.

    58J. Offord to A. E. Cowley, January 8, 1906. See Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodleian Library Records, ledger d. 1083. According to A. E. Cowley, Additional Geniza Fragments, the manuscripts arrived at the Bodleian on January 11.

    59For more on Offord and his manuscript sales, see J. Kalman, “A Cairo Geniza Fragment”, pp. 119–42.

    60A. C. Gunter, A Collector’s Journey, p. 104.

    61Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodleian Library Records, ledger c. 37.

    62Cyrus Adler to Benzion Halper, July 2, 1920. See Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania, Library at the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, Cyrus Adler Papers, Box 45, folder 22.

    63D. W. Amram, “Two Legal Documents”, pp. 115–16.

    64The asterisk has been added to the shelfmark in the online catalogue to distinguish the binding matter from the rest of the manuscript.

    65Folio 45 of the manuscript is described in the typescript catalogue has bearing the date 460 or 1700 A.D. Cowley supposed that this may have been “the date of writing, which at any rate is not much later”.

    66Compare, for example, Neubauer’s handwritten note to the Société de Géographie, which can be read in Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Société de géographie: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8450787s.

    67At this time, I have not been able to uncover information about what this exchange involved or how Ginsburg originally acquired his Hebrew fragments.

    68New York, Jewish Theological Seminary, ms. 1697.12. See a digitized copy in the Judaica DH at the Penn Libraries: https://medium.com/@judaicadh/talking-the-talk-chad-gad-yah-d1ce7abadf0a.

    69A. E. Cowley, Additional Geniza Fragments, p. 71.

    70The Oxyrhynchus papyri have their own provenance issues: in addition to the materials he excavated at Oxyrhynchus (el-Bahnasa), Grenfell also purchased papyri from the antiquities market and did not always clearly distinguish between them. See B. Nongbri, God’s Library, p. 223.

    71The University of Michigan Papyrology Collection: Advanced Papyrological Information System (APIS UM): https://quod.lib.umich.edu/a/apis.

    72For more biographical information, see S. Tomlinson, “Cowley, Sir Arthur Ernest”.

    73See H. H. E. Craster, History of the Bodleian Library, pp. 214–15.

    74This is the provenance description used in the Bodleian online catalogue. I used this phraseology in my own spreadsheet database to differentiate between the other Cowley sub-collections.

    75H. H. E. Craster, History of the Bodleian Library, p. 211 reveals that the Genizah fragments “were bound up in volumes as they reached the library, so almost every leaf had to be separately described”.

    76This title is reproduced exactly as it reads in Cowley’s typescript catalogue with the lacuna after “given in”.

    77See the acquisition information description in the “Miscellaneous Hebrew manuscripts in the Bodleian Library” finding aid: https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/data/gb161-mss.heb.;mss.hebrewrolls;mss.opp.add.;mss.opp.add.4octavo;mss.opp.add.octavo.

    78[Anonymous], “Mahalla al Kobra Synagogue”.

    79D. Kaufmann, “Or ha-ganuz”, pp. 385–393 and 481–490 was the first scholar to link the visits to genizot by Simon van Gelderen and Jacob Saphir to his own collection of Genizah fragments and to Solomon Schechter’s discovery in the Ben Ezra Synagogue, and he was the first to use the phrase “הגניזה” to describe the Ben Ezra Synagogue Genizah. The same narrative was repeated and expanded some months later in a section of an article subtitled “The Genizah” by Elkan Nathan Adler (see E. N. Adler, “An Eleventh Century Introduction”, pp. 671–673). In 1906, the same scholar formalized the idea of “the Cairo Genizah” in the Jewish Encyclopedia.

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    J. W. Jefferson, R. (2025). History of the acquisitions “from the Geniza” in the Bodleian Library: a first assessment. In G. Corazzol & S. Fargeon (éds.), Fragments, manuscrits, livres dans le monde juif (1‑). Publications de l’École Pratique des Hautes Études. https://doi.org/10.4000/13ssl
    J. W. Jefferson, Rebecca. « History of the Acquisitions “from the Geniza” in the Bodleian Library: A First Assessment ». In Fragments, Manuscrits, Livres Dans Le Monde Juif, édité par Giacomo Corazzol et Sarah Fargeon. Paris: Publications de l’École Pratique des Hautes Études, 2025. https://doi.org/10.4000/13ssl.
    J. W. Jefferson, Rebecca. « History of the Acquisitions “from the Geniza” in the Bodleian Library: A First Assessment ». Fragments, Manuscrits, Livres Dans Le Monde Juif, édité par Giacomo Corazzol et Sarah Fargeon, Publications de l’École Pratique des Hautes Études, 2025, https://doi.org/10.4000/13ssl.

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    Corazzol, G., & Fargeon, S. (éds.). (2025). Fragments, manuscrits, livres dans le monde juif (1‑). Publications de l’École Pratique des Hautes Études. https://doi.org/10.4000/13sug
    Corazzol, Giacomo, et Sarah Fargeon, éd. Fragments, manuscrits, livres dans le monde juif. Paris: Publications de l’École Pratique des Hautes Études, 2025. https://doi.org/10.4000/13sug.
    Corazzol, Giacomo, et Sarah Fargeon, éditeurs. Fragments, manuscrits, livres dans le monde juif. Publications de l’École Pratique des Hautes Études, 2025, https://doi.org/10.4000/13sug.
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