The truth of an utterance generally depends on what the words uttered mean and what is the current state of the world; but also on the context of the utterance. Within formal semantics this was first accounted for. by Kaplan, by means of explicating meanings as functions from contexts to intensions. Stainaker then brought the attention to the fact that utteraces not only ‘consume’ contexts but also ‘produce’ new ones; and that context is thus what mediates the interplay between subsequent utterances. In this paper we point out that context can be considered either from the viewpoint of the information it contains (which delimits what can be subsequently consistently claimed), or from the viewpoint of individuals which it contains (which determines what can be subsequently succesfully anaphorically referred to). We discuss the possibilities of explicating contexts within the framework of formal semantics and we also discuss the question to which extent contexts belong to semantics.
Since 1996 the Jewish Museum in Prague has been researching certain Czech and Moravian synagogues that were supposed to contain the so called genizot (sg. genizah). These are the places where damagedand cast off writings andsynagogual objects that might had contained the Hebrew name of God. Such objects were habituolly considered as needing protection from the incompetent hands. This was accomplished exactly through their retention in genizot, or thorugh their rituál burial. Up to now, bigger or smaller genizot háve been found in Luže, Bezdružice, Všeradice, Úsov,
Březnice, Zalužany, Kdyni, Janovice n. Úhlovou, Rychnov n. Kněžnou and Holešov. The textile objects were disinteredfrom six of them. The greatest collection contained the genizah in Luže that
included also an extraordinary collection ofbig synagogual textile (curtains and mantles) and a great number of personál objects (smáli talii ts and cidakles). Next to this one, as far as the extent is
considered, are the collections from Březnice and Rychnov n. Kněžnou, single textiles had showed up in Zalužany, Holešov and Bezdružice, in other localities the textile objects were not found. The oldest textiles dáte back to the middle of the 17th century, the youngest to the end of the 19th century. To the most important findings of the synagogual textile belongs the curtain from Luže from the year 1652, collection of mantles from the same locality, from theyears 1688 and 1691, or a beau-tiful mantle from Březnice from 1758, with linen lining decorated with bound batik. These objects
represent for us important evidence of the decoration and technology, ušed in given time period especially in the country. An extraordinary importance has the circumsicion apron from Luže, the
only onepreserved in the country, and the collection of cidakles, smáli tallits worn over the clothes, that in all localities také the form of a smáli vest with elaborated buttoning. Also these cidakles had
not showed up in our collections before. Concerning the technologies and textile production, the evidences of bound and vax batik are wery interesting, even though these might had been ušed
secondarily, and objects made from the remainders of cotton prints containing identification stamps of the producers.