Royal Asiatic Society,
5, New Burlington Street,
London <manuscript> 3 <October> <1> 1856
Dr Sir,
You cannot do us a greater honour than by becoming a member of the Society, and I will put up your name for election as soon as you authorise me to do so. Our first meeting is in November, as you will see by the card enclosed; <2> but if now elected, your payment for this year is null.
I have shown your letter to Sir H. Rawlinson <3> and he thinks it would be a more satisfactory proof of the truth of the decipherment, if you should take up something which is quite new, much as the Annals of Tiglath Pileser, <4> which will appear at the same time as those of Sennacherib. So many hints, and even translations of parts of the latter have already been printed by Hincks, Layard <5> and Rawlinson himself (in the outlines &c) that your versions however independent, would not be thought so by determined objectors. Tiglath Pileser Annals are lithographed, but not yet printed off I believe the Trustees of the Museum <6> will issue the two together; and if not, they would doubtless furnish you with a copy for the very valuable use to which you would apply it. Colonel Rawlinson has no right to issue any; in fact it is an understood thing that he will not make his own copies, (which will have translations attached) published public, until the Government copies are out. I have no doubt the Society would readily be the medium of carrying out your proposal.
I remain Dr Sir
yours very truly
Edwin Norris
H. Fox Talbot EsqNotes:
1. Text written in an ancient language.
2. Enclosure not located.
3. Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson, 1st Baronet (1810–1895), orientalist.
4. Both WHFT and Rawlinson worked on the inscriptions of Tiglath Pileser I. WHFT translated (March 1857) the inscriptions of a cylinder dating from the reign of the Assyrian King Tiglath Pileser I (1115–1077 BC). [See Doc. No: 00092]. Rawlinson published the same year Inscription of Tiglath Pileser I., King of Assyria, B.C. 1150 (London: Royal Asiatic Society: J.W. Parker, 1857).
5. Rev Edward Hincks (1792–1866), Irish Egyptologist & Orientalist; and Sir Austen Henry Layard (1817–1894), politician and one of the excavators of Nineveh.
6. The British Museum.