Monday, July 01, 2024

Persistence pays off for Targum on toast

THE GENIZA FRAGMENTS BLOG: Targum on Toast (Marc Michaels).
My colleague, Estara Arrant posted an image on social media of one of the nine fragments that constitutes T-S K22.16, jokingly remarking that the streaky brown mess resembled a slice of toast.

As one might expect the catalogue entry on these fragments is short. Very short. It consists of one word - ‘illegible’. This of course piqued my interest. What was the ‘toast’ hiding? Also, I love a challenge. Thus, the day after the 2024 Ullendorff lecture, Estara brought the manuscript into the Genizah Unit and we set to work to solve the puzzle.

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They did manage to identify the document, but there is plenty of work left to do on it - someday when the technology is better.

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