Page 255 - גנזי קדם ז

A Unique and Early Use of Micrographic Carpet Page Format 25*

Another indication that micrography may have begun early in the the tenth
century, or prior to it, is the fact that this technique had already been transferred
to other scribal endeavors. It had already been used in the decoration ofmarriage
contracts (ketubbot) in the tenth century.26 The micrographic carpet page under
discussion, an independent sheet like the ketubbot, also dating to the tenth
or eleventh century, is another indicator suggesting that micrography began
earlier. As a sheet created for private, independent use, ENA 2630.1 stands
out in its imaginative breadth, for the micrographic element in a ketubbah is
secondary to the documentary text, marginal both in location and status. Our
piece represents an otherwise unknown use of this technique, one closely tied
to its origins in Scripture, consisting exclusively, as it does, of scriptural verses.

Reconstruction of the Fragment’s Development
Edna Engel of the Institute for Paleography at the Hebrew University, who
examined digital scans of both sides of this sheet, dated them both to the same
period, the tenth or eleventh century.2728This early dating is significant for each
text featured here. M id ra sh Tehillim is known to us only from manuscripts
dated several centuries later, so the present text could very well represent
one of many midrashic passages circulating independently, which were later
collected and collated to form one of the versions of the anthological collection
known as M id ra sh T ehillim 2 This parchment sheet may therefore be the earliest

26 Avrin(n. 19 above), p. 47. AlthoughC. Sirat, Writing as Handwork: AHistory ofHandwriting
inMediterranean and Western Culture (Brepols 2006), p. 29, claims that “only one marriage
contract fromthe period between 124 and 1050 CE has been preserved,” from Antinoopolis,
Egypt, 417 CE, M. A. Friedman has published several ketubbot from the tenth century
in Jewish Marriage in Palestine, a Cairo Genizah Study (Tel Aviv and New York 1981).
Only one of them contains “decoration found also amongst non-Palestinian marriange
contracts...[that is] several Biblical verses...written in minute letters,” see p. 97).

27 In a personal communication to M. B. Lerner, which I thank him for sharing with me.
28 Gert Wildensee (in a personal communication) commented that the relatvely large size of

the lettering on such a small sheet would require a prohibitively large number of sheets for
even a small portion of this midrashic work.