TY - CONF A1 - Cohen, Zina A1 - Schlanger, J. A1 - Hahn, Oliver A1 - Rabin, Ira T1 - Cairo Genizah documents of the 11th century: analysis of writing materials N2 - The Cairo Geniza is an “archive” discovered in the 19th century in Ben Ezra Synagogue in Fustat, a district in Old Cairo (Egypt). The collection of mostly Jewish documents that vary in genres, languages and writing supports contains a large number of early medieval Hebrew manuscripts. The Geniza provides sources for the literary, linguistic, historical studies of the various aspects Jewish life. As the documents attest, at least two Jewish communities co-existed in Fustat up to 11th century: a so-called Babylonian and Palestinian. These communities had different leaders, different traditions and lived independently. The differences seem to manifest themselves also in the paleographical, codicological and some material properties of the manuscripts produced by each community. The aim of this project is to compare the inks used in the Jewish documents depending on different variables: support (paper, parchment), purpose of the manuscript (legal, private, religious), provenance of the scribe. For the determination of the inks type and composition we had to choose non-invasive, non-destructive and portable techniques to analyze the corpus directly on-situ. The analyses were carried out with a micro-X-ray spectrometer ArtTAX® (Bruker GmbH) and a digital stereomicroscope features built-in LED illumination at 395 nm and 940nm, Dino Lite. We would like to stress that though the methods of material analysis listed above have been successfully employed in the field of cultural heritage and conservation including ancient and medieval manuscripts they have not yet been used to study fragments from the Cairo Genizah. Therefore, we believe that this research project is a pioneering study that will provide new insights into the history of Hebrew writing materials, their production techniques and materials and, thus, contribute new data to the field of Hebrew paleography. T2 - Konferenz Art&Archaeology2018 – 3rd International Conference CY - Jerusalem, Israel DA - 09.12.2018 KW - XRF KW - Ink KW - Manuscripts KW - Cairo Genizah KW - Reflectography PY - 2018 AN - OPUS4-47100 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - BOOK A1 - Cohen, Zina T1 - Composition Analysis of Writing Materials in Cairo Genizah Documents N2 - Through the application of scientific methods of analysis to a corpus of medieval manuscripts found in the Cairo Genizah, this work aims to gain a better understanding of the writing materials used by Jewish communities at that time, shedding new light not only on the production of manuscripts in the Middle Ages, but also on the life of those Jewish communities. KW - Ink analyses KW - Cairo Genizah KW - X-Ray fluorescence analyses KW - Reflectography KW - Middle Ages PY - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-588642 UR - https://brill.com/display/title/59331 SN - 978-90-04-44887-2 SN - 978-90-04-46935-8 SP - 1 EP - 192 PB - Brill CY - Leiden & Boston AN - OPUS4-58864 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Cohen, Zina T1 - Beyond the text: What writing materials of the Cairo Genizah tell us N2 - Results: - Four types of inks were measured iron gall (vitriolic and non vitriolic), carbonic, mixed and vegetable inks. - We need to start analyzing systematically the organic part of the inks. - Great variety in the composition of the inks. - No correlation between the type of ink used and any other criteria apart from a personal preference. - Inks purchased by (some) scribes. - Reconstruction of the chronology of writing and signing of certain legal documents. - Comparison with documents written by the Muslim court. T2 - Ink Workshop CY - Munich, Germany DA - 28.06.2022 KW - Ink analyses KW - Manuscript studies KW - X-Ray fluorescence analyses KW - Cairo Genizah KW - Middle Ages PY - 2022 AN - OPUS4-58874 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -