BM
26th February 1873
My dear Sir,
Mr. G. Smith <1> started on the 20h January and reached Marseilles on the 22d as appears by his letter addressed to the Daily Telegraph. <2> Since that period he does not appear to have written even to his own family – but a letter received here from the British Consul at Smyrna announces that he had landed and gone on at once. He has letters of introduction to the American missionaries who are likely to prove useful to him.
Mr Sayce <3> is to translate the text of the mutilated tablet called the synchronous history It is not very long and would not be very expensive to publish with transliteration and linear versions. What some members of the Society desire is that the most remarkable historical texts should be translated and appear in our pages. The Society can not however publish a great deal and notwithstanding the generous assistance afforded by yourself and others for the last part – it cost us £87ּּ0ּּ0 so that you may judge how expensive the printing of the unusual characters is Have you seen the Accadian grammar of Mr. F. Lenormant. <4> He is coming to England on the 3d Instant to stay a week. Besides the grammar he has given the text of K.126 in the Mélanges <5> recently published at Paris and another Babylonian text of Urakh in the last number of the Revue Archeologique and is very active in his Assyrian studies. He advocates the theory that the earliest Babylonian is not Accadian but Semitic. Sir H. Rawlinson <6> has promised a Paper to the Society on the Babylonian Paradise. According to his present views – the Hebrew Paradise was <heretical?> at Babylon where another version prevailed. Snakes were excluded It will be interesting when worked out
You will I hope be able to give the Society a translation of some historical document. Have any of Nebuchadnezzars <7> cylinders ever been translated. They would form a good subject.
Believe me Yours very truly
S Birch
H. Fox Talbot EsqeNotes:
1. George Smith (1840–1876), Assyriologist.
2. The Daily Telegraph sponsored the excavation. [See Doc. No: 09935].
3. Archibald Henry Sayce (1845–1933), Egyptologist & Orientalist.
4. François Lenormant (1837–1883), French archaeologist.
5. Melanges d’Archeologie Egyptienne et Assyrienne (Paris: 1872). [See Doc. No: 09957].
6. Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson, 1st Baronet (1810–1895), orientalist.
7. WHFT had previously contributed some translations in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature. [See Doc. No: 09956].