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Document number: 02730
Date: 07 Nov 1873
Recipient: TALBOT William Henry Fox
Author: COOPER William Ricketts
Collection: British Library, London, Manuscripts - Fox Talbot Collection
Collection number: Acc 22614 [envelope only]
Last updated: 18th April 2012

5. Richmond Grove
Barnsbury. N.
7th Novr 73

My Dear Sir

Can you do us an additional favor in sending a transcript of the Blk Obelisk of Shalmaneser. <1> We announced it by an oversight on reading Mr Sayce’s <2> Letter, as he has now sent us the obelisk of Shamas Rimmon and as the public will look now for a text of Shalmaneser it would be unfortunate if it were not published There are many enquiries for the work which is being hurried on as fast as due regard to accuracy will allow.

I am going to ask M Oppert <3> for the Median Text of the Behistun Inscription, <4> have you any cautions to suggest as to this?

You are of course aware that Mr Smith <5> starts for Assyria very shortly, so we may expect further valuable texts

I remain My Dear Sir Yours faly
W. R. Cooper

Henry Fox Talbot, Esq. FRS
&c &c &c

[envelope:]
Cooper
Henry Fox Talbot Eq. FRS
&c &c &c
Lacock Abbey
Chippenham

Notes:

1. He means the ‘Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser’ (9th century BC). [See Doc. No: 09621].

2. Archibald Henry Sayce (1845–1933), Egyptologist & Orientalist.

3. Prof Julius Oppert (1825–1905), German Assyriologist, active in Paris.

4. The Median/Elamite text was the second of the three cuneiform texts of the Behistun Inscription placed high on a cliff and recording King Darius suppression of a rebellion. The Persian and Babylonian had been previously deciphered and translated. The Median/Elamite was in an unknown language and remained to be worked upon. The first two decipherments and translations of the Behistun Inscription Texts were undertaken in the following order: First, Persian: Grotefend, Lassen, confirmed Hincks, Rawlinson 1839, 1845, 1846. Second, Babylonian: Rawlinson 1850; then Hincks, Rawlinson, WHFT, and Oppert gave independent translations in a public experiment suggested by WHFT on different unknown text in 1857. This was held at the Royal Asiatic Society. Rawlinson and Hincks substantially agreed, with WHFT being considered less positive and precise and Oppert’s as the weakest. The Babylonian decipherment was then considered proved.

5. George Smith (1840–1876), Assyriologist.