Goitein referred to these materials, together with his photocopies of geniza fragments, as his “Geniza Lab.” He had adopted the “lab” concept from Fernand Braudel (1902–85), the great French historian of the Mediterranean, who ran a center in Paris that he and others referred to as a laboratoire de recherches historiques. Between 1954 and 1964, Braudel’s “lab” funded Goitein’s research on the Mediterranean.1