Letter: ENA 3513.5

Description

Letter from Salāma b. Yeshūʿa and Maḥfūẓ b. Yūnus (or maybe Būlus), in Balaqāṭar (unidentified village perhaps in southern Anatolia), to Abū Sahl Yaʿqūb b. Muʿammar (?), possibly in Fustat. The senders are prisoners or captives in Byzantine territory and waiting to be rescued. Written in Judaeo-Arabic (with the address in Arabic script), with rudimentary handwriting and orthography. Paleographic dating (Alan Elbaum): 11th or early 12th century. The writers are imprisoned ([fī] ḥabs) in a village called Balaqṭar (בלקאטר), in iron fetters (קיוד חדיד), an acacia wood stockade, and a locked room. They were moved there 120 days earlier and have seen no Jew who knows whether they are alive or dead. The man holding them plans to travel and take them with him, possibly to Barqa. They thank the addressee for his letter and for an enclosed note, but it was in Arabic script, and no one where they are can read it to them, so they ask for future letters to be written in Hebrew script. They acknowledge news that "the relative" (al-qarīb) has arrived safely in Antalya. They also mention a man from Antalya, a chief or ship's captain (rayyis) in Germanikopolis, an orphan boy from Latakia, and the land of the Rūm. On the verso they describe themselves in Hebrew as "in great distress" (בצרה גדולה) and unable to move from their place due to the restraints; they send greetings to Abū l-Ḥasan. The place names and the inability to find someone who can read Arabic script suggest captivity in Byzantine territory. (The location in the earlier version of this record, "near Alexandria," rests on the settlement of Balaqāṭar in Egypt and a restoration in recto line 3, but there may also be a Balaqāṭar in Anatolia.) MR