Divorce Document (Fustāt, Egypt)

This Aramaic divorce document, dated to 1054, dissolves the marriage between Joseph ben David and Ḥaba’ bat Joseph. The term “and whatever other name” is common in writs of divorce and would have been necessary in a society where Jews adopted Arabic names in many settings. Like many divorce documents and in keeping with talmudic requirements, this text was written with particular attention to orthography and certain elongated letters, in order to avoid misreadings.