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Document number: 9595
Date: 14 Dec 1869
Recipient: TALBOT William Henry Fox
Author: NORRIS Edwin
Collection: British Library, London, Manuscripts - Fox Talbot Collection
Last updated: 10th June 2013

6 Michaels Grove
14 December 1869

My dear Sir,

Your letter is very welcome and will give me good hints. I quite adopt your reading [cuneiform] asku and envy your scharfsennigkeit in guessing it, but I doubt not that Bellino <1> took it for [cuneiform] which is the way la is always written in this Inscription and I am inclined to think the original inscription had the same error, seeing how wonderfully accurate Bellino generally was. the ku is made so often [cuneiform] with the first perpendicular [ill. del.] very thin, which gave rise to the error no doubt. I shall insert this and the other notes in my working copy of the dictionary, <2> with the view of ulterior publication, but unluckily I am now almost without books. All my working books are worn out by constant handling, and are gone to the binders for reparation, but so soon as I get them again I shall insert your notes.

I have just completed an article on a line in what I call “Talbot’s slab,” (I mean the K 162.) <3> which contains sibbu taktu, which I translate “girdle and clasp” (?) takta, Syrian signifying “a buckle” You will see all about it in the first sheets of my part 3. From close examination along with G. Smith. <4> I see that the often recurring word which you read adon Unident, is really Unident a gale. This alters the meaning greatly. The lady or goddess is conducted through seven gates, and her ornaments are taken off at each gate; on her return she passes through the gates, necessarily in reversed order, and gets them put on again. this is simple, but I find the whole difficult, and am obliged to make guess-work. I am inclined to think nigass may be eunuch – from nigah to “cut off” Heb ó÷ë, but in the dicty I only say ‘attendant’; I hazard for ammeni the meaning numquid a me, and make the eni Do you take from me? “ammui ta[s?]pal,” I think in the line, but I am hurrying to have the post and cannot refer to my books, my working stock being absent. Unident is the mark of a question, Latin anne.

I think your alti=asti very probable; the Hebrew is úùà whatever the points may – see êúùà his wife in Gen.iv.1.

I must close in haste, and may after all be too late

I remain Yours faithfully
Edwin Norris

H. Fox Talbot Esq
&c &c &c


Notes:

1. Karl Bellino (1791-1820), German Assyriologist. .

2. Edwin Norris,Assyrian Dictionary (London: Williams and Norgate, 1872), part III, p. 906.

3. Norris published this honorary title in his Dictionary, part III, p. 906.

4. George Smith (1840-1876), bank-note engraver, Assyriologist.

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