Judaica DH at the Penn Libraries Blog //DataDeepDive: Marginalia
Blog //DataDeepDive: Marginalia

In this series, we take a deep dive into the Talk boards tags to look at how volunteers classify the fragments. You can read an overview of our Talk boards tags in the Sorting Phase Data review.

Marginalia (285) refers to the marks found in the margins of a fragment, including drawings, notes, pen trials, or illuminations of the text. For volunteers, marginalia are easy to identify as striking visual characteristics. For medievalists, marginalia can expand upon the meaning text, or provide an additional level of information about its scribe and/or readers.

The Lieberman Catalog and the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary identified this fragment as calculations of segulot, or protective charms from Kabbalastic tradition. Subject 11618927: ENA 3577, Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary

This manuscript held at Columbia University Libraries includes texts from Proverbs with large and small Masorah notes — notice the lamedhs in the top and side margin. Subject 32843371: MS X893.1 BJ B473, Columbia University Libraries

A mix of Hebrew and Arabic script, the image on the right includes a section of the Haggadah. In the image on the left, a scribe wrote a perpendicular line of Arabic. Subject 21708180: MS-MOSSERI-I-00101, Genizah Research Unit, Cambridge University Library

Here, we see a standard version of marginalia, with smaller text supporting the larger text on the page. Subject 30753096: Gaster Heb. ms. 2110d/9–1, Gaster Heb. ms. 2110d/9–2, The University of Manchester Library

In the margin of the image on the left, a different hand wrote six phrases from a poem pleading for the reconstruction of the Temple. Subject 11584279: Halper 430, University of Pennsylvania, Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies Library, Cairo Genizah Collection

👉 Read more Talk conversations or start your own by participating in Scribes of the Cairo Geniza on Zooniverse!

By Judaica DH at the Penn Libraries on .

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Exported from Medium on April 14, 2020.

Cite this post: admin. “DataDeepDive: Marginalia”. Published April 07, 2019. https://judaicadh.github.io//blog/2019-04-07-datadeepdive/. Accessed on .