The Incredible World of the Cairo Genizah

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Often in the discipline of history, finding evidence is a painstaking process. Documents are difficult to find and then just as hard to decipher. However, sometimes treasures of historical documents are found and reveal a distinct historical place or period. That is what the Cairo Genizah did.

Discovery of the Cairo Genizah

The Cairo Genizah is one of the world’s great historical treasures. In 1896, twin sisters and scholars Agnes Smith Lewis and Margaret Dunlop Gibson returned to Great Britain from a trip to Egypt. They brought with them several Hebrew manuscripts they had purchased from a Cairo bookseller.

The twins showed their purchase to an expert in the field, Solomon Schechter. They were unusual and remarkably well preserved manuscripts. After further research, Schechter discovered that there was a storage room in Cairo filled with these types of documents.

What Schechter found was a historian’s dream. Thousands of fragments were well preserved in the storage room of one building, the Ben Ezra synagogue. The era of the documents ranged from 870 C.E. to as late as the 19th century.

Significance

Most of these papers were preserved for a particular reason. In Judaism, Hebrew religious texts are regarded as sacred. They cannot be casually discarded or thrown away. While many communities buried their scrolls and other materials, the Ben Ezra synagogue kept a separate storage room where old items could be discarded. The dry climate of upper Egypt helped to preserve the material.

Over the years, not only were sacred texts stored in this room, but all kinds of other documents from day to day life were thrown in. This included legal documents, government orders, marriage contracts, accounting receipts, poetry, and even grocery lists. There were roughly 400,000 pages of documents and fragments found. The scripts contain a variety of languages. One of the most common languages of the writing is in Judeo-Arabic, a mix similar to Yiddish in Europe. Letters were also found in Arabic, Aramaic, and Hebrew.

The majority of documents found were from around 1000 to 1250. This was the period of several Islamic kingdoms in Egypt, including Fatimid, Ayyubid, and Mamluk rule. The Cairo Genizah texts are invaluable tools for peering into the world of this place and periods of time.

In particular, the Cairo Genizah is a portrait of the Medieval Mediterranean world inhabited by Jews, Muslims, and Christians. Generally, there was much interaction and mingling between groups. Evidence comes from letters written and business transactions made. Sometimes the words in these letters use a mix of customs. There are marriage contracts full of Jewish traditions but some are also written in Arabic and refer to some traditions within the larger Islamic world.

Among the documents we can witness what people bought and sold. The types of clothes they wore. How marriages were arranged and how they sometimes failed. One letter found was of a woman writing about being angry at her husband for having to live with his difficult family. Another letter is from a widow to a community leader. In that writing, the grieving widow asks for intervention to help her move back into her house after being tossed out by her stepson. There are also larger tragic events recorded. One document recalls witnessing mass killings during the First Crusade.

Difficulties for Historians

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The Cairo Genizah manuscripts also demonstrate how complex and difficult it can be to accurately understand history. Many documents are only fragments, torn or dulled over time. They are difficult to read. People sometimes wrote on top of an existing letter or receipt, blocking the intent of the original writing. Often, it really is detective work to find good evidence.

Another challenge is that the Cairo Genizah if full of writing by ordinary people writing to their peers, not for posterity. While that may sometimes lead to exciting discoveries, it can often perplex historians trying to interpret the writing. For example, the document may refer to a person or an item that was well known at the time, but remains obscure to a modern reader. Also people may write in peculiar dialects or slang.

As well, modern historians must be careful to separate their own contemporary ideas and customs with that of the medieval world. A particular word for someone writing a letter in 1100 C.E. may have very different implications or meaning than someone writing that same word today.

The findings within the Cairo Genizah continues to be actively studied. Interpretations of the documents are constantly revised. Attempts are ongoing to gain a better understanding of the people who lived there at the time.