Park Lodge
Weston super Mare

Mar. 26. 1877

My dear Sir

Will you allow me to ask your perusal of the enclosed proof, & the favour of any corrections & suggestions for the improvement of the paper before I read it on the 16^th April?

Perhaps you may remember, that we exchanged notes some time ago about the Kesibta wh. Ishtar ^<1> brought to the rich man, which I took to be a goblet of lapis lazuil (Egⁿ Khesbet). ^<2>

I had some talk with M^r King at Trinity on this matter afterw^ds & he said I might tell you that he agreed in this suggestion; all the more that the best Khesbet came to Eg^t from Babylonia.

You will doubtless have noticed in Lenormant’s ^<3> last work (‘Etudes’ &c) p. 191, that Karanu sigba sibgu is a kind of wine & perhaps identical with sizbu the divine nectar which Ishtar brought to the sick man – pouring it into the vessel of Khisibta (Lapis?).

Believe me
My dear Sir
Y^rs very truly

Henry George Tomkins

I shall be most grateful for any annotations or corrections.

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Notes:

1. WHFT wrote several papers on the descent of Istar (also Ishtar). [See Doc. No: 05377].

2. See Doc. No: 05317.

3. François Lenormant (1837–1883), French archaeologist. Étude sur quelques parties des syllabaires cunéiformes (Paris: Maisonneuve & Co, 1876 ). On p. 119 (instead of Tomkins’ citation to p. 191) Lenormant writes on the difference between ‘kurunnu’ and ‘karanu’ as designating two different types of wines recited in the deluge account.