The Cairo Genizah manuscripts: Taylor-Schechter Old Series and the Mosseri Collection
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Grant Holder:
Dr Ben Outhwaite
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.
HTML to be generated from XML for web delivery; JPEG files from archival TIFFs for web delivery.
| Project start date: 2009-03 | Project end date: 2012-02 |
Subject domains:
Era(s):
Country/region(s):
| Methods used | Category |
|---|---|
| 3d Scanning | Data capture |
| Resource sharing | Communication and collaboration |
| Collating | Data analysis |
| Collocating | Data analysis |
| Indexing | Data analysis |
| Photography | Practice-led research |
| Text encoding - descriptive | Data structuring and enhancement |
| Text encoding - presentational | Data structuring and enhancement |
| Textual interaction (asynchronous) | Communication and collaboration |
| preservation | Strategy and project management |
| linguistics | Discipline |
| Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) | Metadata standards |
| Collaborative publishing | Data publishing and dissemination |
| text | Content types |
| history | Discipline |
Funding sources:
Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
Content types created:
Dataset/structured data, Still Image/Graphics, Text
Software tools used:
TextEdit; Adobe Photoshop; Oxygen; as-yet unspecified DAMS.
Source material used:
Taylor-Schechter Genizah Collection and the Jacques Mosseri Genizah Collection: predominantly Jewish manuscripts dating from the 5th c. CE to the late 19th c., but with the majority dating between the late 9th to mid 13th c., and 16th-17th c. The manuscripts are mostly written in Hebrew, Judaeo-Arabic, Arabic and Aramaic, though documents in many other languages can also be found. Both collections are held at Cambridge University Library: the T-S Collection as part of the Library's permanent collection and the Mosseri as a 20-year loan from the Mosseri family of Paris.
Digital resource created:
Zoomable images and searchable descriptions to be displayed through Cambridge University Library's new digital asset management system. All to be freely available over the web as an essential resource for the study of Jewish literature, religion and history in the medieval and early-modern periods.
Access to digital resource:
Open Access
Data Formats created:
JPEG; TIFF, TEI XML
Metadata standards employed:
Text Encoding Initiative (TEI), Other
Project staff and expertise:
| Principal staff member: | Dr Ben Outhwaite |
|---|---|
| Other staff: | Computing officer(s) / Technical supporter(s), Postdoctoral researcher(s) / Research assistant(s) |
| External expertise: |
| Metadata on this arts-humanities.net record | |
|---|---|
| Author(s) of record | Ben Outhwaite |
| Title | The Cairo Genizah manuscripts: Taylor-Schechter Old Series and the Mosseri Collection |
| Record created | 2010-07-19 |
| Record updated | 2010-07-19 12:10 |
| URL of record | http://www.arts-humanities.net/node/3709 |
| Citation of record | Ben Outhwaite: The Cairo Genizah manuscripts: Taylor-Schechter Old Series and the Mosseri Collection. <http://www.arts-humanities.net/node/3709> created: 2010-07-19, last updated 2010-07-19 12:10 |