[blind stamp:]
Killyleagh Co Down
24th Jany 1862
Dear Sir,
I yesterday received your letter of the 20th, also one from M Ménant who has sent me copies of all his publications, so that I shall not want the volume which you spoke of sending me. He spoke of publishing a second & improved edition of the principal work.
The passage which you cite from Lord Aberdeen’s stone has certainly a story bearing on the meaning of kudur. It seems to me, however, that you misapprehend the meaning of it, and that it really signifies “a soldier”, as I stated in my last paper.
I grant that this is not the meaning in the present passage but it is in others; and the whole matter now appears to me quite plain, so as to leave nothing further to be explained. kudur is in this passage the helmet, the distinguishing dress of the military: elsewhere it means the soldiers themselves, by a similar metonymy to that which we use, when we speak of blue jackets, red coats, broad brims &c; meaning sailors, soldiers, quakers &c of whom these were the distinguishing articles of clothing.
That kudur in the passage you quote does not signify crown is evident to me from the following considerations. 1st We have another word for crown,
in the position T.P. ort.[?] 1.2 where Assur is styled “the giver of the sceptre & of the crown”. This crown was horned; and accordingly Shiva, the moon god, is called the לעב, “wearer of the horned crown”. 2nd I doubt if assi can signify “I put on”, and I am sure that if it did, it would be followed by anu not as. See Genesis under [hebrew], respecting e. Its meaning is sustulit, atstulit. I translate the line thus “the helmet (that was) on my head I took off, and”. It is connected with the following line ’husarbil ramani “I caused my body guard (lit. “my guides”; is not this used in the same sense by the French?) to go into quarters”.
Now that kudur means, secondarily & by metonymy, “a soldier” I infer from p.18 of the same volume. In l.67 the king speaks of imposing on his conquered enemies, in addition to their tribute, zabil kudur ri “quartering of soldiers” – “finding quarters for the soldiers after their campaigns” In l.62 we have the verb. “The men ikduru “put on their helmets”, “took the field”. And this explains the use of the verb in Job 15.24 “a king prepared [hebrew] for campaigning”. In Assyrian it would be ana kidduri : and I have no doubt that the Hebrew word, badly [illegible], was intended to denote this form of the verb, the ground of the frequentation of kal as mitkhuzhi &c.
In the passage you quote from p. 50 – the king seems to speak of his finishing his campaigns and assaying himself to execute public works at home. It is analogous to what we read in the older inscriptions, though this refers to but a single expedition, “my arrows (or the arms of Assur)” ’hulil “I put in the quiver” where the character for lil evidently represents a quiver.
By the way, one of the most striking things in Ménant’s book is his discovery that the character for “king” represented a wasp, as the Egyptian hieroglyphic for king of Lower Egypt. This is a most interesting fact. It is impossible to suppose that this symbol was adopted by the two people independently of one another; and the wasp is found on contemporary monuments of the 4th dynasty. Here then we have evidence, auxiliary to that from their language, that the Egyptians and Chaldeans had a common origin.
I have had a letter from Oppert. I send it to you & also a copy of my reply to him, both of which I will thank you to return. It seems that the question is no longer one of priority of independent discoveries, but of direct plagiarism.
Believe me Yours vy Truly
Edw Hincks
H. F. Talbot Esqre
[envelope:]
[annotated by WHFT:] Hincks
W. H. Fox Talbot Esq.
Millburn Tower
Edinburgh