Object Type

Codex

Support

Handmade cream-coloured paper

Medium

Ink: black

Support Dimensions (mm)

225 × 175

Text-block Dimensions (mm)

180 × 130

Foliation

—

Folios

001+296+001

Layout

Written in one column with 27 lines per page

Catchwords

Catchwords on each folio verso

Watermarks

—

Binding

Sewn binding, leather covering of wooden boards

State of Preservation

Good, the text is clearly legible, the item underwent a complex restoration treatment in 2012.

Date of Copying

mid-19th century

Copyist

Jeshua Josef Mordkowicz

Translator

Jeshua Josef Mordkowicz

Place of Copying

Halych

Script

Hebrew

Script type: North Karaitic mashait script

Vocalization: Tiberian vocalisation

Diacritics: Dagesh, sin dot, shin dot, and mappiq not used. Raphe used for marking spirantization.

Characteristic features of the script: The letter aleph has the structure of K in the Roman alphabet and, quite often, a H-structure. The letter lamedh has a two-stroke structure; the upper stroke is curved, the horizontal middle stroke is simplified or omitted. The final mem is an oval in the upper half of the line, whereas the bottom stroke of the letter is slightly arched upward – this makes the letter’s left side pointy and thus easily distinguishable from samekh. The final nun has a short upper horizontal stroke, which continues either in a straight vertical stroke or in a vertical shallow S-wave. No final pe form is used. The middle stroke of shin is a small horizontal curve joined to the top of the left stroke. Double waw and double yodh are used. No ligatures are used. The manuscript is the work of probably the same hand as the one presented in plate 394 of Birnbaum, Salomo A. 1954–1957. The Hebrew Scripts. Part Two: The Plates. London. We see the same hand in ADub.III.83, ADub.III.84, and TKow.02. The manuscript was created in Halych, but the shape of the letters is, practically speaking, identical to those known from 19th-century manuscripts produced in Lutsk; see, e.g., JSul.I.04.

Text Language

South-Western Karaim
Hebrew , colophons, incipits

Creation

The text was created in the mid of the 19th century in Halych
.

Ownership

Jeshua Josef Mordkowicz (?–1884?)
Józef Sulimowicz (?–1973)
Anna Sulimowicz (1973–)

Manuscript description by Michał Németh
Digital edition by Anna Sulimowicz-Keruth, Dorota Cegiołka, Zsuzsanna Johan

Citation

Johan, Zsuzsanna, Dorota Cegiołka and Anna Sulimowicz-Keruth. 2022. ‘A digital edition of the Karaim biblical manuscript JSul.III.01’, in László Károly and Michał Németh (eds) A database of Middle Turkic documents. Uppsala: Department of linguistics and philology. Accessed 15 Jan 2026. https://middleturkic.lingfil.uu.se/manuscripts/middle-karaim/JSul.III.01

Licensing

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International

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