Palimpsest of the Hebrew Liturgical Poet Yannai over Aquila’s Greek Translation of 2 Kings 23:11–27
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.Documents preserved in the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Fustat, Egypt (882), provide a rich account of Jewish life, liturgy, and religion in the early Islamic world. The Genizah testifies to the shift from Greek to Arabic, the adoption of the codex form, and the development of new forms of calligraphy and textual/critical apparatus by Jews during this period. The Cambridge scholar Solomon Schechter discovered the documents in 1896.
This fragment from the Cairo Genizah originally contained portions of the Greek translation of the Torah by Aquila, a second-century student of Rabbi Akiba. In the ninth century, the Greek text was scraped off and replaced with Hebrew liturgical poems by the sixth-century Palestinian poet Yannai.
This fragment from the Cairo Genizah originally contained portions of the Greek translation of the Torah by Aquila, a second-century student of Rabbi Akiba. In the ninth century, the Greek text was scraped off and replaced with Hebrew liturgical poems by the sixth-century Palestinian poet Yannai.
Artwork Details
- Title: Palimpsest of the Hebrew Liturgical Poet Yannai over Aquila’s Greek Translation of 2 Kings 23:11–27
- Date: 5th-6th century; overtext: 9th-10th century
- Geography: Made in Egypt or Palestine (?), from the Cairo Genizah
- Medium: Ink on parchment; bifolium
- Dimensions: Folio 1: 10 5/8 x 8 1/2 in. (27 x 21.6 cm)
Folio 2: 10 5/8 x 8 11/16 in. (27 x 22.1 cm) - Classification: Manuscripts
- Credit Line: Cambridge University Library, Taylor-Schechter Genizah Collection, Cambridge (T-S 20.50)
- Curatorial Department: Medieval Art and The Cloisters