British Museum
14th March 1870
My dear Sir,
You will be glad to hear that your testimonial with three of other Assyrian scholars have been successful and that the Trustees have nominated Mr Smith <1> to the place rendered vacant by Mr Coxe’s <2> death that he has passed the Civil Service Examinations which was referred to Sir H. Rawlinson <3> and that his final appointment has been signed by the Lord Chancellor and will receive the Speaker’s and Archbishops <4> signature in a day or two. This is a good thing for our Collections as Mr Smith is well acquainted with its contents and his services will be at the disposal of those examining the Collections. Your are I hope continuing your studies but it will be necessary to have another excavation either this or next year if possible to find 1. The half of our present library which lies under the mounds of Kouyunjik and 2 the Babylonian library of inscribed clay tablets which is referred to in our Collection. Mr Fr. Lenormant <5> objects to the Murr of the Shalmaneser obelisk <6> being Egypt and he is I think right – for the two humped Camel represented being never an Egyptian animal – and the Camel itself with one hump is never seen on any Egyptian monuments. So that Murr of Shalmanezer if correctly read must be Bactria or the Punjab. Have you seen Ganneau <7> plate of the new Ph œnician inscription of Mesha King of Moab, <8> published in his opuscule La Stele de Mesa roi de Moab. <9> It begins [etruscan] I Mesu King son of Khemosh (nadab) Ganneau has restored as I hear from the Assyrian Mesarnatib a Moabite king mentioned in the texts. The Palestine Fund has a copy which is important and differs in some respects from the French It is not however quite so perfect, as the French Some of the Alter of Mes La inscriptions are peculiar [etruscan] is found for the [etruscan] as [etruscan] is for [etruscan] and approximate to the old Grats Alter [etruscan] for [etruscan] in Corenth & [etruscan] for [etruscan] in the Etruscan [etruscan] Aihle (Achilles) The name [omor?] is [etruscan] in the Mesa stone. I quote however from memory
Yours very truly
S Birch
Notes:
1. George Smith (1840–1876), Assyriologist.
2. William H. Coxe, who died on 18 December 1869 after an illness of 3 years; son of Rev. H. O. Coxe, Bodley's Librarian; Asst. to Birch at the British Museum and, briefly, Prof of Sanskrit at Kings College, London.
3. Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson, 1st Baronet (1810–1895), orientalist.
4. Lord Chancellor, Speaker and Archbishop were the appointing British Museum Trustees for Smith’s permanent appointment, which required all three signatures.
5. François Lenormant (1837–1883), French archaeologist.
6. Shalmaneser’s Black Obelisk (9th century BC).
7. Charles Simon Clermont Ganneau (1846–1923), archaeologist. [See Doc. No: 09775].
8. Biblical King.
9. La Stèle de Mesa, roi de Moab (Moabite Stone) (Paris: 1870). The stone was found at Dhiban (biblical Dibon), in Moab, and carried inscriptions of names and places identical with those menioned in the Bible.