Judaica DH at the Penn Libraries Blog //DataDeepDive: Divided Subjects
Blog //DataDeepDive: Divided Subjects

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.

In our review of the sorting phase data, we noted that most subjects were classified by 5 volunteers before they were retired & officially classified. At the start of the project, we had that number as 7 volunteers. When we changed the number from 7 to 5, any subject that had already received 5 classifications had to receive one more classification before it would be retired & formally sorted. 8 contested subjects (<1%) were affected by this change,leaving the subject still contested after retirement.

We wanted to take a closer look at some of these subjects with context from our researchers.

While all of the volunteers who viewed this subject classified it as informal, they were split on whether it was Hebrew or Arabic. This subject will be found in the Challenging Hebrewworkflow. Subject 11547050: ENA NS 85 1184, Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary

The Princeton Geniza Lab identified Subject 1260258 as a legal deed. This subject will be found in the Challenging Hebrewworkflow. Subject 12602580: ENA NS 29, Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary

The Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary identified Subject 12602953 as a legal document — notice the signature in the lower left corner? This subject will be found in the Challenging Arabicworkflow. Subject 12602953: ENA NS 37, Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary

The Friedberg Geniza Project’s Philosophy, Theology, and Polemics team identified Subject 11615054 as an essay on ethics and morals in Judaism. While it’s written in Judeo-Arabic, it’s written in Hebrew script. This subject will be found in the Easy Arabicworkflow, but is a #misclassification and should be in Challenging Hebrew. Subject 11615054: ENA 2983, Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary

Subject 1161370 is a piyyut. This subject will be found in the Challenging Hebrewworkflow. Subject 11611370: ENA 2766, Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary

This subject will be found in the Easy Hebrewworkflow. Subject 11597738: ENA 2230, Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary

Subject 21953887 is a great example of the documentary (informal) Geniza, and part of a collection of small written orders in Hebrew and Arabic scripts for monthly payments from pious foundations in medieval Egypt. The Princeton Geniza Lab identified this particular order, written in Hebrew script, as an instruction of Avraham Maomindes to Abu al-Majd to give the Cantor, Abu al-Hasan, nine dirhams. This subject will be found in the Challenging Hebrewworkflow. Subject 21953887: MS T-S K25.240.18

Subject 11584360 is a 17th century section of a kabbalistic treatise known as Asarah maʾamarot, or “the ten sayings.” Written in Hebrew Italian cursive script, this subject will be found in the Easy Hebrewworkflow. Subject 11584360: Halper 439, 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: Divided Subjects”. Published June 11, 2019. https://judaicadh.github.io//blog/2019-06-11-datadeepdive/. Accessed on .