The Cairo Genizah manuscripts: Taylor-Schechter Old Series and the Mosseri Collection

The project aims to complete the cataloguing and detailed description of the Old Series of the Taylor-Schechter Cairo Genizah Collection and a substantial proportion of the Jacques Mosseri Genizah Collection. The T-S Collection consists of approx. 193,000 medieval (and early modern) Jewish manuscripts recovered from a storeroom (Genizah) in Old Cairo one hundred years ago, and is an unparalleled resource for the study of medieval Judaism, Islam and the history of the Mediterranean and Near East in the Middle Ages. The Old Series is the historical core of the Collection, and approx. 16,000 manuscripts (dating mostly from the 9th to the mid-13th c. CE) will be described in detail. The descriptions will be matched to high-quality digital images (produced by a parallel project), and will be made available online through the Library's web site. 1000 items from the Jacques Mosseri Genizah Collection - a collection of Genizah manuscripts made later than the T-S but originating, mostly, from the same source - will also be described and digitised, images and descriptions to go online.