15, Edith Villas
North End. S.W.
Dec 11/72.
Dear Sir,
I have made photographs for the “Deluge Tablets” if you would like me to forward you Copies.<1>
I hope you have been able to make a selection from those you have.
I remain, Dear Sir Yours obediy
S. Thompson
H. Fox Talbot Esq.
[envelope:]
H. F. Talbot Esqre
Lacock Abbey
Chippenham
Notes:
1. Working as a contractor to the British Museum, in 1872 Stephen Thompson published a volume of Photographs of the Collection in the British Museum. WHFT had suggested to Dr Samuel Birch (1813–1885), linguist, Keeper at the British Museum, London to use photographers instead of copyists in the excavations in Mesopotamia to take copies of inscriptions. [See Doc. No: 01239, and Doc. No: 01248, and Doc. No: 07311]. Thompson contributed the photographs to illustrate George Smiths' Chaldaen Account of the Deluge, from Terra Cotta Tablets, found at Nineveh, and now in the British Museum (London: Mansell, 1874). Subsequently, WHFT privately published Commentary on the Deluge Tablet, together with a second tablet in the British Museum relating apparently to the Deluge (London: printed by Harrison & Sons, 1875), based on papers he presented in the Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, v. 4, part 1, June 1875, pp. 49-83 and 129-131.