H Fox Talbot Esqre
23d February 1877
My Dear Sir,
Many thanks for your note <1> about katem ‘gold’ the meaning has been asserted by M. Chabas and Brugsch – Bey. <2> There are so many Semitic words in the Egyptian of the 19th dynasty that they materially influenced the language.
I do not think Grivels <3> manuscripts would add much to our knowledge of Assyrian the probability is that M. Grivel <4> junior sets some value upon them and if so I should like to know it as also to see the papers without which it is impossible to form an opinion. Believe me
Yours very try
S. Birch
H. Fox Talbot Esqr
Notes:
1. See Doc. No: 01582.
2. François Joseph Chabas (1817–1882), French Egyptologist, and Heinrich Ferdinand Karl Brugsch (1827–1894), German Egyptologist. Bey was the title given to a chieftain by the Khedive. Brugsch directed the School of Egyptology in Cairo founded by the Khedive.
3. Joseph Grivel (1810–1876), Swiss Assyriologist.
4. L Grivel, son of Joseph Grivel, the Assyriologist.