Legal document: T-S 16.115

Description

Legal document: deathbed declaration, made by a woman whose name is not preserved. The upper part of the document is missing, but the reconstruction, as proposed by Assaf, would be approximately as follows: "This is what happened before us, the undersigned witnesses, on the date of ... We entered the house of ... and found her sick in her bed, etc." The woman bequeaths one third of a compound owned by her in Qasr al-Sham' to the two synagogues, of the Palestinians and the Babylonians, in equal parts. One sixth of the compound is handed over to a certain Fa'iza, on the condition that she marries; if she dies unmarried, this sixth also would pass to the two synagogues, and not to any of Fa'iza's heirs. Another third of the compound is willed, in equal parts, to the testator's brother Sahlan and to Rayyisa, the daughter of her other brother, Efrayim. One twelfth of the compound has previously been sold to another niece of the testator's, Sutayt, the daughter of her sister Sayyida, for 14 Mu'izzi dinars. This sum was spent for timber, to be used for repairs in the compound. Another twelfth is to be sold, and the revenue (14 dinars) used to cover the expenditures for the transportation of the woman's body to Jerusalem and her burial there. (Information from Gil, Documents, pp. 119 #1)