Letter: T-S NS J342

Description

Recto: Letter or petition in Judaeo-Arabic. Goitein suggests that it was written to the judge Avraham b. Natan, who reused it for the account on verso. The sender is a woman. Only the first part of each line is preserved, so it is difficult to understand the content. It seems that her husband has been traveling for over a year while she remains at home. It seems that some people wanted to manumit the daughter of a female slave (fa-rāmū ʿitq ibnat al-jā[riya]). Only fragmentary phrases are preserved out of the next section: the number 10; someone testifying "about her"; "her document"; the court; "the remainder of the ketubba"; "she entered the house"; and "the first." The margin contains an extended dialogue between the speaker and a man, presumably her husband: "I said to him, 'You returned(?) [...], and the sign is our reconciliation and my demanding the ketubba from you,' and he said, 'I know that, but we will take you(?),' and I said to him by way of rejecting him/this, 'I have no replacement.' He said, 'If . . . from your dower (mahr). . . .'