Royal Asiatic Society,
5 New Burlington Street,
London
24 July, 1856
Dear Sir,
I am very glad indeed to hear you have been working at the Scythic monuments of Hisa<1>, which have scarcely been probed as yet; I hope you will communicate your readings, in which I have already much confidence, judging from your success in the Nebuchadnezzar slab. You will be glad to hear that Sir Henry <2> is preparing a grand Corpus Inscriptionum which will be engraved and printed at Government Cost. We have already printed the large Sennacherib monument and are now at work on the records of Tiglath Pileser I. But it will be a long time before any thing is ready for the public.
I have been talking with Sir Henry about Grotefend; <3> he has usually been quoting what Grotefend published in the Göttinger Zeitschrift, but he is not able to say, of what date. Grotefend has always published in separate letter brochures, when he did not write in the learned publications Journals: and they are all difficult to come at. He usually called them Beiträge zum Studium der Assyrischen Studium Schrift <4>or by some similar title.
Excuse this hurried note for I am overwhelmingly busy
Believe me Yours very faithfully
Edwin Norris
Fox Talbot, Esq
&c &c
[envelope:]
Fox Talbot, Esqr
Lacock Abbey
Chippenham.
Notes:
1. In Northern Iraq.
2. Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson, 1st Baronet (1810-1895), orientalist.
3. Georg Friedrich Grotefend (1775-1853), archaeologist and philologist.
4. Contributions to the study of Assyrian Cuneiform.