In August 2017, the University of Pennsylvania Libraries, in partnership with the Princeton Geniza Project, the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary, the Genizah Research Unit at Cambridge University, and the Zooniverse, began the first phase of a larger project to attempt to sort and transcribe Cairo Geniza fragments, entitled “Scribes of the Cairo Geniza.” This article describes the first phase of the projects and its results

Eckstein, Laura Newman

English

Kosmopolis

Masthead Logo Manuscript Studies
Volume 3
Issue 1 The Syriac Galen Palimpsest Article 9
5-9-2019
Of Scribes and Scripts: Citizen Science and the
Cairo Genizah
Laura Newman Eckstein
University of Pennsylvania, lauraeck@upenn.edu
This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/mss_sims/vol3/iss1/9
For more information, please contact repository@pobox.upenn.edu.
Of Scribes and Scripts: Citizen Science and the Cairo Genizah
Abstract
In August 2017, the University of Pennsylvania Libraries, in partnership with the Princeton Geniza Project,
the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary, the Genizah Research Unit at Cambridge University, and the
Zooniverse, began the first phase of a larger project to attempt to sort and transcribe Cairo Geniza fragments,
entitled “Scribes of the Cairo Geniza.” This article describes the first phase of the projects and its results.
Keywords
Cairo Genizah, paleography, Jewish manuscript studies, digital humanities, crowd-sourcing
This annotations is available in Manuscript Studies: https://repository.upenn.edu/mss_sims/vol3/iss1/9
M A N U S C R I P T  ST U DI E S
A Journal of the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies
volu m e 3,  n u m be r 1
(Spring 2018)
Manuscript Studies (issn 2381- 5329) is published semiannually 
by the University of Pennsylvania Press
1
Eckstein: Of Scribes and Scripts: Citizen Science and the Cairo Genizah
Published by ScholarlyCommons, 2019
MANUSCR IP T ST UDIE S
A Journal of the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies
v o l u m e  3 ,  n u m b e r  1
Special Issue:
The Syriac Galen Palimpsest
Editors: William Noel and Ralph M. Rosen
Articles
Th e Syriac Galen Palimpsest Project: An Introduction 
William Noel and Ralph M. Rosen 1
Pulling It All Together: Managing the Syriac Galen 
Palimpsest Project
Michael B. Toth 9
Th e Codicology and Conservation of the Syriac 
Galen Palimpsest
Abigail B. Quandt and Renée C. Wolcott  33
Spectral Imaging Methods Applied to the Syriac 
Galen Palimpsest
Roger L. Easton, Jr., Keith T. Knox, William A. Christens-Barry, 
and Ken Boydston 69
Th e Galen Palimpsest and the Modest Ambitions of the 
Digital Data Set
Doug Emery 83
Th e Syriac Galen Palimpsest: A Tale of Two Texts
Naima Afif, Siam Bhayro, Grigory Kessel, Peter E. Pormann, 
William I. Sellers, and Natalia Smelova 110
2
Manuscript Studies, Vol. 3 [2019], Iss. 1, Art. 9
https://repository.upenn.edu/mss_sims/vol3/iss1/9
iv | Journal for Manuscript Studies
Analyzing Images, Editing Texts: Th e Manchester Project
Naima Afif, Siam Bhayro, Peter E. Pormann, William I. Sellers, 
and Natalia Smelova 155
Th e Textual Interest of the Syriac Versions of Galen’s Simples
Irene Calà, Jimmy Daccache, and Robert Hawley 186
Annotations
Of Scribes and Scripts: Citizen Science and the Cairo Geniza
Laura Newman Eckstein 208
Preserving Endangered Archives in Jerba, Tunisia: 
Th e al-Bāsī Family Library Pilot Project
Ali Boujdidi and Paul M. Love 215
Th e Intricacies of Capturing the Holdings of a Mosque 
Library in Yemen: Th e Library of the Shrine of Imām al-
Hādī, S. a̔ da
Sabine Schmidtke 220
Compilation, Collation and Correction in the Time 
of Encyclopedism: Th e Case of UPenn LJS 55
Nathalie Lacarrière 238
Mapping Manuscript Migrations: Digging into Data for the 
History and Provenance of Medieval and Renaissance 
Manuscripts
Toby Burrows, Eero Hyvönen, Lynn Ransom, and Hanno Wijsman 249
Reviews
A .hmad A̔bd al-Bāsi .t. Catalogue of the Private Collections of 
Manuscripts in the Egyptian National Library
Elias G. Saba 253
3
Eckstein: Of Scribes and Scripts: Citizen Science and the Cairo Genizah
Published by ScholarlyCommons, 2019
Contents | v
David T. Gura. A Descriptive Catalogue of the Medieval and 
Renaissance Manuscripts of the University of Notre Dame and 
Saint Mary’s College
Lisa Fagin Davis 256
Christopher De Hamel. Meetings with 
Remarkable Manuscripts
Daniel Traister 260
4
Manuscript Studies, Vol. 3 [2019], Iss. 1, Art. 9
https://repository.upenn.edu/mss_sims/vol3/iss1/9
5
Eckstein: Of Scribes and Scripts: Citizen Science and the Cairo Genizah
Published by ScholarlyCommons, 2019
Of Scribes and Scripts
Citizen Science and the Cairo Geniza
Laur a New m a n Eckstein
University of Pennsylvania
T
he attic of Ben Ezra Synagogue, in what is today known as Old 
Cairo, once held hundreds of thousands of manuscripts: the corpus 
of the Cairo Geniza. Traditionally, the term Geniza is understood 
as a temporary storage chamber for unusable Hebrew religious texts. For 
unknown reasons, however, the Jews of Fustat never removed their texts 
 om the Geniza. Not only did they deposit religious texts in the Geniza, 
they also le  their letters, court records, receipts, and other conventional 
texts that tell us about daily life during the tenth to the thirteenth centu-
ries. In the late nineteenth century, the Geniza was emptied and the  ag-
ments were dispersed to various scholarly institutions. Yet, over a century 
later, less than half of the approximately 350,000  agments have been cata-
loged, and those that have been cataloged have varying levels of detail.1 This 
is largely due to the complexity of the task and the particular skill sets 
required—many languages, hands, and scripts need to be deciphered by just 
a handful of experts. 
In August 2017, the University of Pennsylvania Libraries, in partnership 
with the Princeton Geniza Project, the Library of the Jewish Theological 
Seminary, the Genizah Research Unit at Cambridge University, and the 
1 “About Scribes of The Cairo Geniza,” Zooniverse.org, https://www.zooniverse.org/
projects/judaicadh/scribes- of- the- cairo- geniza/about/research, accessed 27 September 20⒘  
6
Manuscript Studies, Vol. 3 [2019], Iss. 1, Art. 9
https://repository.upenn.edu/mss_sims/vol3/iss1/9
Eckstein, Of Scribes and Scripts | 209
Zooniverse, began the fi rst phase of a larger project to attempt to sort and 
transcribe Cairo Geniza  agments, entitled “Scribes of the Cairo Geniza.” 
The Zooniverse is the world’s largest and most popular platform for people- 
powered research. Hundreds of thousands of people around the world come 
together on this platform to assist professional researchers. Their goal is to 
enable research that would not be possible, or practical, otherwise.2 Instead 
of relying on the expertise of a few scholars, we will be relying on the inter-
est of the global population, and the remarkable potential of crowdsourcing 
technologies. We provide basic guides that give citizens the information 
they need to make useful distinctions that can contribute to deciphering 
the Geniza.
In the fi rst phase of the project, we are asking citizen- scientists to sort 
Cairo Geniza  agments in preparation for our later transcription phase. 
By asking a series of tailored questions, we will be able to gather more 
metadata about each individual  agment. To devise a successful workfl ow, 
in which citizens are asked questions that generate useful data, and in 
ways that engage the widest possible audience, we worked  om the fol-
lowing principles:
⒈  No expert knowledge is required for participation. 
⒉  Reward for work is almost immediate.
⒊  The work undertaken adds to the sum of knowledge about the Geniza.
The third principle is particularly important. Mia Ridge, in her volume 
Crowdsourcing our Cultural Heritage, writes, “Think of crowdsourcing in 
cultural heritage as a coalescence around a set of principles, particularly the 
value placed on meaningful participation and contributions by the public.”3 
Here are two examples of good questions we decided not to ask because 
they would not result in meaningful data that we did not intend to acquire 
through other means.
2 “About the Zooniverse,” Zooniverse.org, https://www.zooniverse.org/about, accessed 27 
September 20⒘  
3 Mia Ridge, Crowdsourcing Our Cultural Heritage (London: Routledge, 2017), ⒋ 
7
Eckstein: Of Scribes and Scripts: Citizen Science and the Cairo Genizah
Published by ScholarlyCommons, 2019
210 | Journal for Manuscript Studies
• Do you see the word “W”? While this question can be extremely helpful 
in determining the genre of a particular  agment, individual words 
will de deciphered in the later transcription phase. There is no need to 
ask citizen- scientists to duplicate later work. If it seemed that we 
could answer a question through the transcription process, or would 
be too confusing for citizen- scientists and hence result in data that 
would not be helpful for sorting purposes, the question was nixed 
 om the workfl ow.
• Is there a drawing on the fragment? This category encompasses such phe-
nomena as embellished letters, doodles, and ink smudges, and thus 
might result in data that is too diverse to be useful. (Drawings undoubt-
edly remain interesting, and users can record observing them using 
hashtags on talk boards, as discussed below). 
The questions we decided to pose are as follows:
• In what script is this text written? This will tell us whether the  agment 
is in Hebrew, Arabic, or both Hebrew and Arabic scripts. We provide 
users with easy tutorials that allow them to recognize these scripts by 
sight. We need this information for sorting before we begin Phase II: 
we want those with language skills to be able to transcribe diffi  cult 
texts in familiar scripts in Phase II (fi gure 1).
• Is the script written in a formal or informal style? Again, we provide visual 
guides for users in this task. This information tells us whether the 
 agment will be easier or more diffi  cult to transcribe. Given the fact 
that formal scripts are more uniform in their lettering styles, with 
fairly even lines in comparison, they should be much simpler to tran-
scribe than informal scripts (fi gure 2).
• Identify (using the point tool) a few diff erent visual characteristics depending 
on whether the fragment is in Hebrew, Arabic, or both types of script. 
   Diagonal text and/or perpendicular text in the margin of  agments 
in Hebrew script tells us that it is a documentary  agment rather 
than a religious one, probably a letter.
   A horizontal line above a word in a Hebrew script tells us that the 
 agment contains a literary text. 
8
Manuscript Studies, Vol. 3 [2019], Iss. 1, Art. 9
https://repository.upenn.edu/mss_sims/vol3/iss1/9
Eckstein, Of Scribes and Scripts | 211
   Colons indicate the end of a verse or a line of a literary text. 
   Seals,  equently found on Arabic  agments, indicate a state docu-
ment (fi gure 3).
• In addition to answering these questions, the citizen- scientist may 
also participate through the talk boards. When a user has answered 
all the questions for a given  agment, they can click either “done” or 
“done & talk.” The latter brings users to a window with a picture of 
the  agment they just worked on, together with a comment box in 
which they can write. They can add further observations about their 
 agment in this comment box; they are encouraged to use hashtags, 
which are searchable. Some of these hashtags we prepared in advance, 
such as “#redink” or “#drawings,” knowing that they have the poten-
tial to be useful. The tags are also useful if you have a question. All 
you do is use the tag #askanexpert. Each day one person  om our 
content team, an expert in the Geniza, is assigned to the talk boards 
(see fi gure 6). Below I’ve included a screenshot of all of the talk boards 
as well as an example talk discussion (screennames omitted for pri-
vacy) to show the type and wealth of interactions that the talk board 
facilitates.
figure 1. Questions distinguishing Hebrew and Arabic script types. Digital image. 
Scribes of the Cairo Geniza, 8 August 2017, htt ps://www.zooniverse.org/projects/
judaicadh/scribes- of- the- cairo- geniza/classify, accessed 27 September 2017.
9
Eckstein: Of Scribes and Scripts: Citizen Science and the Cairo Genizah
Published by ScholarlyCommons, 2019
212 | Journal for Manuscript Studies
Talk Board Example (see fi gures 4 and 5)
Person 1: #formalscript Practically intact. Some text seems to have 
been put in a box on the back side of the  agment.
Person 2: This may be a nineteenth- century piece. The Jewish 
community of Cairo was depositing things into the Geniza chamber 
practically until the day it was emptied in 189⒎ 
Person 3: What language is this though?
figure 2. Question distinguishing formal and informal script types. Digital image. 
Scribes of the Cairo Geniza, 8 August 2017, htt ps://www.zooniverse.org/projects/
judaicadh/scribes- of- the- cairo- geniza/classify, accessed 27 September 2017.
figure 3. Question asking about the visual characteristics of a Cairo Geniza fragment 
using the point tool. Digital image. Scribes of the Cairo Geniza, 8 August 2017, htt ps://
www.zooniverse.org/projects/judaicadh/scribes- of- the- cairo- geniza/classify, accessed 
27 September 2017.
10
Manuscript Studies, Vol. 3 [2019], Iss. 1, Art. 9
https://repository.upenn.edu/mss_sims/vol3/iss1/9
Eckstein, Of Scribes and Scripts | 213
Person 4: Hebrew.
Person 5: Wait how do you know the language is hebrew [sic]? 
Because the script is defi nitely hebrew [sic] . . . but it is diffi  cult to 
determine which language unless you are an expert, which you very 
well could be. If so, we would love to add you to our list of 
moderators.
Person 4: I understood the Hebrew/Arabic question that we are 
answering for each document to be about the letters used. They 
might be transliterating Arabic words into Hebrew letters, but that 
is not what I thought we were supposed to be classi ing. It is true 
that if you read the words, they don’t seem to be Hebrew words at 
all and are more Arabic sounding than Hebrew, but I can’t recog-
nize them as Arabic words either except for maybe ‘kun’. My Arabic 
is not that strong though, and is not Egyptian.
figure 4. ENA 2329.3, recto. Courtesy of 
the Jewish Th eological Seminary.
figure 5. ENA 2329.3, verso. Courtesy of 
the Jewish Th eological Seminary.
11
Eckstein: Of Scribes and Scripts: Citizen Science and the Cairo Genizah
Published by ScholarlyCommons, 2019
214 | Journal for Manuscript Studies
Person 2: The script is Hebrew but the language isn’t. Nor is it 
Arabic. I have a theory about what it is but I’m going to confi rm 
with a colleague before sharing. Stay tuned!
Person 6: The language is Judeo- Persian and the content seems to 
be related to the kabbilistic [sic] custom of inviting Key Biblical fi g-
ures to be hosted in the Sukkah.
Who knew that  agments  om an attic could off er so much potential? 
These Cairo Geniza documents have the potential to rewrite the history of 
the premodern Middle East, of Mediterranean and Indian Ocean trade, and 
the Jewish diaspora. If citizen- scientists can successfully sort and transcribe 
these Geniza  agments, this will change Geniza scholarship forever. But 
the success of this project would have implications far beyond Geniza stud-
ies, and transform the way in which the decipherment of a large corpus of 
diffi  cult texts is undertaken the world over.
figure 6. Scribes of the Cairo Geniza talk boards. Digital image. Scribes of the Cairo 
Geniza, 8 August 2017, htt ps://www.zooniverse.org/projects/judaicadh/scribes- of- the
- cairo- geniza/talk, accessed 27 September 2017.
12
Manuscript Studies, Vol. 3 [2019], Iss. 1, Art. 9
https://repository.upenn.edu/mss_sims/vol3/iss1/9


Of Scribes and Scripts: Citizen Science and the Cairo Genizah

ScholarlyCommons@Penn

Masthead Logo Manuscript StudiesVolume 3Issue 1 The Syriac Galen Palimpsest Article 95-9-2019Of Scribes and Scripts: Citizen Science and theCairo GenizahLaura Newman EcksteinUniversity of Pennsylvania, lauraeck@upenn.eduThis paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/mss_sims/vol3/iss1/9For more information, please contact repository@pobox.upenn.edu.Of Scribes and Scripts: Citizen Science and the Cairo GenizahAbstractIn August 2017, the University of Pennsylvania Libraries, in partnership with the Princeton Geniza Project,the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary, the Genizah Research Unit at Cambridge University, and theZooniverse, began the first phase of a larger project to attempt to sort and transcribe Cairo Geniza fragments,entitled “Scribes of the Cairo Geniza.” This article describes the first phase of the projects and its results.KeywordsCairo Genizah, paleography, Jewish manuscript studies, digital humanities, crowd-sourcingThis annotations is available in Manuscript Studies: https://repository.upenn.edu/mss_sims/vol3/iss1/9M A N U S C R I P T  ST U DI E SA Journal of the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studiesvolu m e 3,  n u m be r 1(Spring 2018)Manuscript Studies (issn 2381- 5329) is published semiannually by the University of Pennsylvania Press1Eckstein: Of Scribes and Scripts: Citizen Science and the Cairo GenizahPublished by ScholarlyCommons, 2019MANUSCR IP T ST UDIE SA Journal of the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studiesv o l u m e  3 ,  n u m b e r  1Special Issue:The Syriac Galen PalimpsestEditors: William Noel and Ralph M. RosenArticlesTh e Syriac Galen Palimpsest Project: An Introduction William Noel and Ralph M. Rosen 1Pulling It All Together: Managing the Syriac Galen Palimpsest ProjectMichael B. Toth 9Th e Codicology and Conservation of the Syriac Galen PalimpsestAbigail B. Quandt and Renée C. Wolcott  33Spectral Imaging Methods Applied to the Syriac Galen PalimpsestRoger L. Easton, Jr., Keith T. Knox, William A. Christens-Barry, and Ken Boydston 69Th e Galen Palimpsest and the Modest Ambitions of the Digital Data SetDoug Emery 83Th e Syriac Galen Palimpsest: A Tale of Two TextsNaima Afif, Siam Bhayro, Grigory Kessel, Peter E. Pormann, William I. Sellers, and Natalia Smelova 1102Manuscript Studies, Vol. 3 [2019], Iss. 1, Art. 9https://repository.upenn.edu/mss_sims/vol3/iss1/9iv | Journal for Manuscript StudiesAnalyzing Images, Editing Texts: Th e Manchester ProjectNaima Afif, Siam Bhayro, Peter E. Pormann, William I. Sellers, and Natalia Smelova 155Th e Textual Interest of the Syriac Versions of Galen’s SimplesIrene Calà, Jimmy Daccache, and Robert Hawley 186AnnotationsOf Scribes and Scripts: Citizen Science and the Cairo GenizaLaura Newman Eckstein 208Preserving Endangered Archives in Jerba, Tunisia: Th e al-Bāsī Family Library Pilot ProjectAli Boujdidi and Paul M. Love 215Th e Intricacies of Capturing the Holdings of a Mosque Library in Yemen: Th e Library of the Shrine of Imām al-Hādī, S. a῾ daSabine Schmidtke 220Compilation, Collation and Correction in the Time of Encyclopedism: Th e Case of UPenn LJS 55Nathalie Lacarrière 238Mapping Manuscript Migrations: Digging into Data for the History and Provenance of Medieval and Renaissance ManuscriptsToby Burrows, Eero Hyvönen, Lynn Ransom, and Hanno Wijsman 249ReviewsA .hmad A῾bd al-Bāsi .t. Catalogue of the Private Collections of Manuscripts in the Egyptian National LibraryElias G. Saba 2533Eckstein: Of Scribes and Scripts: Citizen Science and the Cairo GenizahPublished by ScholarlyCommons, 2019Contents | vDavid T. Gura. A Descriptive Catalogue of the Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts of the University of Notre Dame and Saint Mary’s CollegeLisa Fagin Davis 256Christopher De Hamel. Meetings with Remarkable ManuscriptsDaniel Traister 2604Manuscript Studies, Vol. 3 [2019], Iss. 1, Art. 9https://repository.upenn.edu/mss_sims/vol3/iss1/95Eckstein: Of Scribes and Scripts: Citizen Science and the Cairo GenizahPublished by ScholarlyCommons, 2019Of Scribes and ScriptsCitizen Science and the Cairo GenizaLaur a New m a n EcksteinUniversity of PennsylvaniaThe attic of Ben Ezra Synagogue, in what is today known as Old Cairo, once held hundreds of thousands of manuscripts: the corpus of the Cairo Geniza. Traditionally, the term Geniza is understood as a temporary storage chamber for unusable Hebrew religious texts. For unknown reasons, however, the Jews of Fustat never removed their texts  om the Geniza. Not only did they deposit religious texts in the Geniza, they also le  their letters, court records, receipts, and other conventional texts that tell us about daily life during the tenth to the thirteenth centu-ries. In the late nineteenth century, the Geniza was emptied and the  ag-ments were dispersed to various scholarly institutions. Yet, over a century later, less than half of the approximately 350,000  agments have been cata-loged, and those that have been cataloged have varying levels of detail.1 This is largely due to the complexity of the task and the particular skill sets required—many languages, hands, and scripts need to be deciphered by just a handful of experts. In August 2017, the University of Pennsylvania Libraries, in partnership with the Princeton Geniza Project, the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary, the Genizah Research Unit at Cambridge University, and the 1 “About Scribes of The Cairo Geniza,” Zooniverse.org, https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/judaicadh/scribes- of- the- cairo- geniza/about/research, accessed 27 September 20⒘  6Manuscript Studies, Vol. 3 [2019], Iss. 1, Art. 9https://repository.upenn.edu/mss_sims/vol3/iss1/9Eckstein, Of Scribes and Scripts | 209Zooniverse, began the fi rst phase of a larger project to attempt to sort and transcribe Cairo Geniza  agments, entitled “Scribes of the Cairo Geniza.” The Zooniverse is the world’s largest and most popular platform for people- powered research. Hundreds of thousands of people around the world come together on this platform to assist professional researchers. Their goal is to enable research that would not be possible, or practical, otherwise.2 Instead of relying on the expertise of a few scholars, we will be relying on the inter-est of the global population, and the remarkable potential of crowdsourcing technologies. We provide basic guides that give citizens the information they need to make useful distinctions that can contribute to deciphering the Geniza.In the fi rst phase of the project, we are asking citizen- scientists to sort Cairo Geniza  agments in preparation for our later transcription phase. By asking a series of tailored questions, we will be able to gather more metadata about each individual  agment. To devise a successful workfl ow, in which citizens are asked questions that generate useful data, and in ways that engage the widest possible audience, we worked  om the fol-lowing principles:⒈  No expert knowledge is required for participation. ⒉  Reward for work is almost immediate.⒊  The work undertaken adds to the sum of knowledge about the Geniza.The third principle is particularly important. Mia Ridge, in her volume Crowdsourcing our Cultural Heritage, writes, “Think of crowdsourcing in cultural heritage as a coalescence around a set of principles, particularly the value placed on meaningful participation and contributions by the public.”3 Here are two examples of good questions we decided not to ask because they would not result in meaningful data that we did not intend to acquire through other means.2 “About the Zooniverse,” Zooniverse.org, https://www.zooniverse.org/about, accessed 27 September 20⒘  3 Mia Ridge, Crowdsourcing Our Cultural Heritage (London: Routledge, 2017), ⒋ 7Eckstein: Of Scribes and Scripts: Citizen Science and the Cairo GenizahPublished by ScholarlyCommons, 2019210 | Journal for Manuscript Studies• Do you see the word “W”? While this question can be extremely helpful in determining the genre of a particular  agment, individual words will de deciphered in the later transcription phase. There is no need to ask citizen- scientists to duplicate later work. If it seemed that we could answer a question through the transcription process, or would be too confusing for citizen- scientists and hence result in data that would not be helpful for sorting purposes, the question was nixed  om the workfl ow.b• Is there a drawing on the fragment? This category encompasses such phe-nomena as embellished letters, doodles, and ink smudges, and thus might result in data that is too diverse to be useful. (Drawings undoubt-edly remain interesting, and users can record observing them using hashtags on talk boards, as discussed below). The questions we decided to pose are as follows:• In what script is this text written? This will tell us whether the  agment is in Hebrew, Arabic, or both Hebrew and Arabic scripts. We provide users with easy tutorials that allow them to recognize these scripts by sight. We need this information for sorting before we begin Phase II: we want those with language skills to be able to transcribe diﬃ  cult texts in familiar scripts in Phase II (fi gure 1).• Is the script written in a formal or informal style? Again, we provide visual guides for users in this task. This information tells us whether the  agment will be easier or more diﬃ  cult to transcribe. Given the fact that formal scripts are more uniform in their lettering styles, with fairly even lines in comparison, they should be much simpler to tran-scribe than informal scripts (fi gure 2).• Identify (using the point tool) a few diﬀ erent visual characteristics depending on whether the fragment is in Hebrew, Arabic, or both types of script.    Diagonal text and/or perpendicular text in the margin of  agments in Hebrew script tells us that it is a documentary  agment rather than a religious one, probably a letter.   A horizontal line above a word in a Hebrew script tells us that the  agment contains a literary text. 8Manuscript Studies, Vol. 3 [2019], Iss. 1, Art. 9https://repository.upenn.edu/mss_sims/vol3/iss1/9Eckstein, Of Scribes and Scripts | 211   Colons indicate the end of a verse or a line of a literary text.    Seals,  equently found on Arabic  agments, indicate a state docu-ment (fi gure 3).• In addition to answering these questions, the citizen- scientist may also participate through the talk boards. When a user has answered all the questions for a given  agment, they can click either “done” or “done & talk.” The latter brings users to a window with a picture of the  agment they just worked on, together with a comment box in which they can write. They can add further observations about their  agment in this comment box; they are encouraged to use hashtags, which are searchable. Some of these hashtags we prepared in advance, such as “#redink” or “#drawings,” knowing that they have the poten-tial to be useful. The tags are also useful if you have a question. All you do is use the tag #askanexpert. Each day one person  om our content team, an expert in the Geniza, is assigned to the talk boards (see fi gure 6). Below I’ve included a screenshot of all of the talk boards as well as an example talk discussion (screennames omitted for pri-vacy) to show the type and wealth of interactions that the talk board facilitates.figure 1. Questions distinguishing Hebrew and Arabic script types. Digital image. Scribes of the Cairo Geniza, 8 August 2017, htt ps://www.zooniverse.org/projects/judaicadh/scribes- of- the- cairo- geniza/classify, accessed 27 September 2017.9Eckstein: Of Scribes and Scripts: Citizen Science and the Cairo GenizahPublished by ScholarlyCommons, 2019212 | Journal for Manuscript StudiesTalk Board Example (see fi gures 4 and 5)Person 1: #formalscript Practically intact. Some text seems to have been put in a box on the back side of the  agment.Person 2: This may be a nineteenth- century piece. The Jewish community of Cairo was depositing things into the Geniza chamber practically until the day it was emptied in 189⒎ Person 3: What language is this though?figure 2. Question distinguishing formal and informal script types. Digital image. Scribes of the Cairo Geniza, 8 August 2017, htt ps://www.zooniverse.org/projects/judaicadh/scribes- of- the- cairo- geniza/classify, accessed 27 September 2017.figure 3. Question asking about the visual characteristics of a Cairo Geniza fragment using the point tool. Digital image. Scribes of the Cairo Geniza, 8 August 2017, htt ps://www.zooniverse.org/projects/judaicadh/scribes- of- the- cairo- geniza/classify, accessed 27 September 2017.10Manuscript Studies, Vol. 3 [2019], Iss. 1, Art. 9https://repository.upenn.edu/mss_sims/vol3/iss1/9Eckstein, Of Scribes and Scripts | 213Person 4: Hebrew.Person 5: Wait how do you know the language is hebrew [sic]? Because the script is defi nitely hebrew [sic] .b.b. but it is diﬃ  cult to determine which language unless you are an expert, which you very well could be. If so, we would love to add you to our list of moderators.Person 4: I understood the Hebrew/Arabic question that we are answering for each document to be about the letters used. They might be transliterating Arabic words into Hebrew letters, but that is not what I thought we were supposed to be classi ing. It is true that if you read the words, they don’t seem to be Hebrew words at all and are more Arabic sounding than Hebrew, but I can’t recog-nize them as Arabic words either except for maybe ‘kun’. My Arabic is not that strong though, and is not Egyptian.figure 4. ENA 2329.3, recto. Courtesy of the Jewish Th eological Seminary.figure 5. ENA 2329.3, verso. Courtesy of the Jewish Th eological Seminary.11Eckstein: Of Scribes and Scripts: Citizen Science and the Cairo GenizahPublished by ScholarlyCommons, 2019214 | Journal for Manuscript StudiesPerson 2: The script is Hebrew but the language isn’t. Nor is it Arabic. I have a theory about what it is but I’m going to confi rm with a colleague before sharing. Stay tuned!Person 6: The language is Judeo- Persian and the content seems to be related to the kabbilistic [sic] custom of inviting Key Biblical fi g-ures to be hosted in the Sukkah.Who knew that  agments  om an attic could oﬀ er so much potential? These Cairo Geniza documents have the potential to rewrite the history of the premodern Middle East, of Mediterranean and Indian Ocean trade, and the Jewish diaspora. If citizen- scientists can successfully sort and transcribe these Geniza  agments, this will change Geniza scholarship forever. But the success of this project would have implications far beyond Geniza stud-ies, and transform the way in which the decipherment of a large corpus of diﬃ  cult texts is undertaken the world over.figure 6. Scribes of the Cairo Geniza talk boards. Digital image. Scribes of the Cairo Geniza, 8 August 2017, htt ps://www.zooniverse.org/projects/judaicadh/scribes- of- the- cairo- geniza/talk, accessed 27 September 2017.12Manuscript Studies, Vol. 3 [2019], Iss. 1, Art. 9https://repository.upenn.edu/mss_sims/vol3/iss1/9

https://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1048&amp;context=mss_sims

Of Scribes and Scripts: Citizen Science and the Cairo Genizah

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Kosmopolis

ScholarlyCommons@Penn