The Digital Ark: Early Modern Collections of Curiosities in England and Scotland, 1580-1700

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Joseph [Old Testament] ( - )

Joseph is an important person in the Hebrew Bible and in the Quran, where he connects the story of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in Canaan to the subsequent story of the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. The Book of Genesis tells that Joseph was the 11th of Jacob's 12 sons and Rachel's firstborn, and tells how Joseph came to be sold into slavery by his jealous brothers, and rose to become the second most powerful man in Egypt next to Pharaoh. When famine struck Egypt, Jacob (Joseph's father) and Joseph's brothers came to the Land of Goshen in Egypt.
 Other biography: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_%28son_of_Jacob%29 Relationships: Joseph [Old Testament] was a son of Jacob [Biblical figure] ([?]-[?])

 Linked print sources: as Mentions or references - Geschichte der Deutschen in England von den ersten germanischen ansiedlungen in Britannien bis zum ende des 18. jahrhunderts..
 References in Documents:
Selections from his diary Josephs parti colourd Coate[*]This object is mentioned under this name by a traveller in 1638, in the library accounts for 1662, and by Monconys in 1663: Gunther, iii. 253; Macray, pp. 129, 131 (quoting Monconys, ii. 52-3). Macray identifies it as a coat of 'Tartar lamb' brought from Russia and given to the library in 1615: Macray, pp. 51, 413-4 (Diary, ed. de Beer, vol. 3, p. 107, n. 9).
An Exact and particular Account of the rarities in the Anatomy School (Oxford MS Rawlinson C. 865) 168 Coat of an Indian King commonly call'd Josephs Coat.
[Excerpts from Zacharias Uffenbach's diary of his visit to Oxford in 1710 in the company of his brother Johann Friedrich Uffenbach]

After this the Custos showed us the Devil's alphabet (as he innocently called it), since it is nothing more than a printed tablet with Indian characters. Further we were shown Joseph's coat; Monconys dans la suite de la seconde partie de ses voyages, p. 101, speaks of it, but names another place where he saw it. It is a coat made of leather and trimmed with all kinds of fur of different colours. Why it is so called, I cannot say; the Bible does not tell us that he wore such a one—for I suppose this is the Joseph intended. We also saw here the little cubus mentioned by Monconys on the same page. The block is fashioned out of a piece of oak, through the top of which a brass ring has been so skillfully passed that not only can it be turned completely round, but it shows no sign of the place where it has been soldered. This must, however, necessarily have been done, unless, when the tree was still young, the ring was inserted in a place where part of the tree had been torn away. The tree might then have grown over and round the ring so that in course of time they were able to fashion this cubus with half of the ring exposed, but how it was then loosened so as to revolve I do not know. Therefore I much doubt whether this method was employed and prefer to think that by some curious art at was soldered by means of a lamp without silver and the hole burnt in first by red-hot iron, after having been prepared by the compass. We also noticed the two great crocodiles of which Borricchius writes, as also the fine cranium overgrown with moss of which he likewise treats; further the Indian cow's tail, and also the cranium humanum with its quatuor tuberculi, which are all as Borricchius describes them. But generally speaking the specimens are in great confusion here, full of dust and soot, and there are many among them, as has been said above, and as is to be seen from this description, which do not belong at all to an anatomical museum, but would be much more suitable to an art gallery like the Ashmolean Museum. When a dissection takes place (which, as is universal in publicis lectionibus, scarcely ever happens) it is never here but, as the custos himself stated, in one of the other schools, possibly so as to prevent the collections here from being injured or even stolen.

[Excerpts from Zacharias Uffenbach's diary of his visit to Oxford in 1710 in the company of his brother Johann Friedrich Uffenbach] Further we were shown Joseph's coat; Monconys dans la suite de la seconde partie de ses voyages, p. 101, speaks of it, but names another place where he saw it. It is a coat made of leather and trimmed with all kinds of fur of different colours. Why it is so called, I cannot say; the Bible does not tell us that he wore such a one—for I suppose this is the Joseph intended.
[Travel Diary of Georg Christoph Stirn of Nuremberg, includes description of the Tradescant collection, as well as those in the tower and at Oxford] Joseph's coat, which he wore when he was sold to the Egyptians.[*]This last item is crossed out in the MS.