SOCIETY OF BIBLICAL ARCHÆOLOGY
9, Conduit Street, W.
ASSYRIAN AND EGYPTIAN TRANSLATIONS
8th Octr 1873.
Dear sir
Many thanks for the Ishtar MSS, <1> it goes to print at once, but shall not appear till your exegetical version is read before the Society either next month or December
Please to send on the Taylor Cylinder. <2> Sayce <3> is at work for us on (I believe) the Samic Vul and Shalmaneser Obelisk <4>
Can I have the MSS in a few days?
Excuse my haste Dear Sir
Yrs fally
W. R. Cooper
Henry Fox Talbot Esq
[envelope:]
Henry Fox Talbot. E. FRS
Lacock Abbey
Chippenham
Wilts
Notes:
1. ‘Legend of Ishtar descending to Hades’. [See Doc. No: 02757].
2. ‘Taylor’s cylinder of Sennacherib’ was included in the 1875 edition of Records of the Past being English Translations of the Assyrian and Egyptian Monuments (London: Samuel Bagster & Sons), v.1. [See Doc. No: 08480, and Doc. No: 07981].
3. ‘Samsi-Vul’, now known as ‘Shamshi-Adad’. George Smith mentioned Samsi-Vul I, II, III, IV. He had Samsi-vul as restoring the old temple of Ishtar at Nineveh in the 19th century BC, and Samsi-vul III at 1080 BC again building the Temple of Ishtar. [See George Smith, Assyrian Discoveries (London: Sampson Low, Marston, Low and Searle, 1875), p. 91]. The Society of Biblical Archaeology published ‘Lists of Further Texts for Translation – Assyrian arranged by George Smith’ in Records of the Past being English Translations of the Assyrian and Egyptian Monuments (London: Samuel Bagster & Sons), 1875, 2nd edition, v.I, p. 169: this included ‘Brick of Samsi-vul, ruler of Assyria (Cuneiform Inscriptions, v.1, p. 6)’ and ‘Inscriptions of Samsivul IV, king of Assyria (Cuneiform Inscriptions, v.III, p. 3)’. It is possible that Sayce was talking on these latter inscriptions. Smith also gave ‘Kurkh Monolith of Shalmaneser II’ (Cuneiform Inscriptions, v. III, pp. 7–8), and ‘Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser II’ (Layard’s Inscriptions, p. 87).
4. Archibald Henry Sayce (1845–1933), Egyptologist & Orientalist.