Afghan Geniza

A genizah is a storeroom near a synagogue or Jewish cemetery that is dedicated to Jewish documents; spaces like these were created because Jewish law bans the discarding of writings that bore the name of God. Nonetheless, the usage of the misnomer continues out of convenience and its evocation of the wider-known Cairo Genizah. == Provenance ==

In terms of geographic provenance, while many of these objects’ origins are uncertain, a majority of them hail from the northern Afghan regions of Bamiyan, Ghur, Rob, and Balkh. The contents were found in a cave close to the Iran-Uzbekistan border by a group of locals; this archive likely belonged to a family of Jewish traders who participated in the Silk Road trade in the region. The details surrounding their travel from these areas to their place of discovery to arriving at the locations where they’re currently kept are subject to much speculation. However, because they circulated amongst antiquities dealers before their purchase by the National Library of Israel, it is highly likely that they were illegally trafficked from their places of origin. They are currently being investigated as part of the University of Oxford’s Invisible East project. == Contents ==

The majority (more than eighty percent) of the Afghan Genizah is documentary in nature. These include administrative documents, account books, miscellaneous lists, letters, and legal documents. These documentary files can generally be split up into two groups: the first includes documents from the early 11th century while the second group includes documents from the end of the 12th century and early 13th century. A majority of the documents in the first group deal with a Bamyan family that lived during the early Ghaznavid Period. In addition to the documentary texts, the collection also includes fragments of religious and literary works in a variety of different languages. Included in these religious works is a collection of prayers written in early Judeo-Persian. == See also ==