Material Culture and Everyday Life in the Medieval Mediterranean World—Evidence from the Cairo Geniza

The rich findings of the Cairo Geniza supply unparalleled data concerning the material culture and everyday life of Jews, Muslims, and Christians, who lived around the Mediterranean during the Middle Ages, during mainly the tenth to fourteenth centuries. Private and public houses, clothing, jewelry, amulets, houseware, cleaning materials, perfumes, spices and food are all documented in these tattered documents found in a side chamber in the Ben Ezra synagogue in Cairo. Taken together they provide an ample description not only of Jewish quotidian life, but of the whole Islamicate civilization in the Middle Ages. Following a brief introduction about the significance of the Cairo Geniza and its historical background, we will read some of these documents, learn how to analyze them, compare them to archaeological finds from Egypt, Israel, and Syria, and try to depict through them a comprehensive picture of material life around the medieval Mediterranean. 3 credits. Satisfies the nonWestern or Pre-1800 requirement.