The word “Mahzor,” familiar to most Jews as the term used for the prayer book for the High Holidays, means “cycle.” It can therefore be used to describe a book containing any liturgical cycle. Sometimes the term was also used to describe a text created in codex = book form, as opposed to a traditional Jewish scroll.  

The Bamberg Mahzor, completed in Bamberg, Germany, in 1279, includes prayers for the entire year according to Ashkenazi custom. It is distinguished by its Ashkenazi script and the style of its decoration. 

Typical of the Mahzor’s decoration is the large encircled “zakhor” (“remember”) at the top. The creature at the right is a typical “birds-head” representation of a Jew (such representations were found in medieval Ashkenazi manuscripts). The person (?) to the left, faceless as he is, may be a gentile. Filling out the assemblage are tools and furniture from the Temple. The bird’s head motif unmistakably locates this manuscript in time and place, though the meaning of this sort of image is unclear and much debated.