Podcast script

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The Cairo Geniza

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Today’s episode is not the story of an individual but rather of a collected body of sacred and secular writings, or rather bodies of writings. It’s a story of scripture, court records, correspondence, literature, scholarly studies, and more, of human life as it has left its echoes in writing.

This is the story of the Cairo Geniza, an incredible collection of historical documents, from medieval manuscripts to modern divorces. It's about how that collection, brought from the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Fustat, Egypt, has reached us, and some of the figures involved.

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Ghiyath al-Din Naqqash 1: A Timurid Painter in Ming China

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In the early 15th century, the son of Timur sends an ambassador east to the target of his father's last military campaign.

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Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi 5: The Year 598

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Another year of drought, another of famine, and even more disasters pile on for the early-13th-century Egyptians. We also see Abd al-Latif make a surprising 20th-century appearance.

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Prester John 10: The End is not the End

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It's the end of the Prester John story, or at least the end for now. The priest-king pops up in Tibet and dives into the world of fiction and comics, and the Dalai Lama makes an appearance.

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Prester John 8: Ambassador Mateus and his Many Doubters

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In the early years of the 16th-century, Ethiopia's regent, Eleni, sent an ambassador to Portugal to propose an alliance. She sent a man named Mateus. Unfortunately for Mateus, almost nobody believed him.

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Prester John 3: The Fifth Crusade

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The crusaders make their way first to Acre and then to Damietta. Perhaps someone would be along to help them soon?

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Prester John 2.5: Papal Correspondence

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A shorter episode, on a letter from Pope Alexander III to Prester John.

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Prester John 1: The Letter

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The legend in its early forms: the arrival in Rome of a patriarch from the east, the chronicles of Otto of Freising, and that famous "letter."