Analytische Chemie
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Our current projects focus on the material analysis of the writing materials
kept in the Taylor-Schechter Collection at Cambridge University Library,
which houses the largest collection of Cairo Geniza fragments, about 190,000.
Although Geniza manuscripts have attracted a great deal of scholarly attention,
the material aspects of these documents seem to have been largely neglected.
The current study aims to obtain information on the composition of the writing
supports and the inks that were used, the production of the original manuscripts
and the history of their degradation. The collected data should supplement the
description based on Hebrew palaeography and codicology. Moreover, a characterisation
of the writing materials would provide insights on trade, local production
techniques and social structures. The tabulated results have the potential to
be used as geo-chronological markers if sufficient data is collected.
For our study, we chose Hebrew legal documents and letters from three communities
that co-existed in Fustat (today Cairo) in the 11th century: the Jerusalemite
(or ‘Palestinian’) community, the Babylonian community and the Karaites, three
different communities with different scribal traditions. In addition to this, we
studied non-biblical scrolls attributed to the Palestinian and Babylonian communities.
The question we addressed was whether we can correlate the use of a
specific type of ink to an objective criterion.
For our analysis at Cambridge University Library, we used a number of protocols
developed at BAM (Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung) in
Berlin and at the Centre for Study of Manuscript Cultures, University of Hamburg
(CSMC). These include reflectographic examination followed by non-destructive
X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analysis using transportable instruments so that the
analysis can be carried out in situ.
We have illustrated our approach here by providing two examples. The first one
describes our investigation of the leather fragment containing a portion of the
Babylonian Talmud on its hair side (TS Misc.26.53.17). The second example illustrates
our ability to compare iron-gall inks using the XRF method. In this case,
we explored the question of the codicological attribution of three fragments (TS
F17.4, TS 12.755 and TS 12.756) to the same Talmud manuscript.
Le monde de la Génizah du Caire et plus particulièrement la collection de Cambridge (CUL) a recu l’attention des chercheurs depuis le XIXe siècle mais peu de recherches ont été faites à ce jour sur l’aspect matériel des manuscrits. Pourtant l’archéométrie est un outil précieux pour mieux comprendre les sociétés qui ont créés ces documents.
Analysis of writing materials in Genizah fragments written during the first half of the XIth century
(2017)
My doctoral dissertation in progress focuses on ink composition on some fragments found in the Cairo Genizah and written by the leaders of the Jewish communities in Fustat during the first half of the XIth century. This is a project at the intersection of historical (Hebrew paleography) and scientific (physics, chemistry and materials science) disciplines. Indeed, I’m analyzing the corpus I constituted (written by Ephraim ben Shemarya and Yephet ben David from the Palestinian congregation and Elhanan ben Shemarya, Abraham ben Sahlan and Sahlan ben Abraham from the Babylonian community). The interests of such a study are numerous: provide insights on trade, local technologies, and social structures. If sufficient data is collected, the tabulated results have the potential for use as an indirect geochronological marker, in particular in the case of iron-gall ink. The composition of the vitriol used for the iron-gall ink preparation depends on the place of extraction. While attributing the vitriol used to a specific source of extraction is seldom possible, a number of origins can be excluded thanks to such analysis. Though ink composition alone cannot be used as a direct geochronological marker, superposition of chemical, palaeographical, codicological, and textual data would help to date and localize and serve as an additional argument for a typology and dating of other Hebrew scripts.
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.