15, Edith Villas. S.W.
Dec 30/ 72.
My dear Sir,
The cheque arrived safely - £11. 16. 6. with thanks.
I have been unwell or would have acknowledged it before. The other side of “tablet” has been photographed, and I shall forward you a copy. <1> It was impossible to fix any little piece of the mutilated fragments on the board to photograph, so that you may wonder at the absence of some connecting links.
Mr Smith <2> was here a night or two since. He expects to start for Nineveh in a fortnight. You have doubtless heard that the “Daily Telegraph” has offered the necessary funds for [ill. del.] excavations to be commenced.<3> Mr Edwin Arnold<4> will accompany him.
The Cyprus things were photographed, but in a great hurry under disadvantages.
I remain Yours very truly
S. Thompson
H. Fox Talbot Esq.
Notes:
1. The cheque was for photographs of the Deluge Tablet - see Doc. No: 06664. 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.
2. George Smith (1840–1876), Assyriologist. His excavated tablets arrived in London in August 1873. See Doc. No: 09999.
3. The proprietors of the Daily Telegraph offered 1000 guineas to encourage Smith to look for the missing parts of the Deluge Tablets. He was successful at this, along with other new discoveries, and subsequently made additional trips, this time fully sponsored by the British Museum. See his Assyrian Discoveries: an Account of Exploratons and Discoveries on the Site of Ninevah, During 1873 and 1874 (London: S. Low, Marston, Low, & Searle, 1875).
4. Edwin Arnold (1832–1904), editor of the Daily Telegraph.