Michaels Grove
15th Feb. 1867
My dear Sir,
Govr Hincks, the brother of poor Dr Hincks, <1> is here getting up a Memorial, similar to the one your mention; it has been signed by Rawlinson, myself, Strangford, and I have written to Dr Scott, Master of Balliol, to Max Müler, Oppert, and some others for their signatures. <2> The lamented decease took place just before one of our meetings, where Rawlinson pronounced a handsome and graceful tribute to Hincks’s memory, giving a very high character to the discoveries he had made, and to his extraordinary sagacity. He does not assert to Hinks’s astronomical notions and he has written a paper in its refutation, which however he will not publish until the matter of the pension is decided. [cuneiform] certainly means some darkness of the sky, either bad weather, or eclipse, or misfortune, or something of the sort; [cuneiform] as you are no doubt aware, being opposed to [cuneiform],as whit black to white, or dark to light. I believe [cuneiform]means simply super-terraneous, of course including “divine.” Hinck’s’ [sic] paper is printed in English in the Berlin monatsberict, <3> and his curate informed me that he (Hincks) posted it with his own hands the day (or two) before his death, being in very good health. I believe [cuneiform] means “to heat” or “to be warm weather.” I thought I had found another case in Sargon’s barrel l 25, but now I doubt, thinking we have di as part of the verb.
My hand is very shaky, and yet I write hastily, having a good deal to do; besides letters in the case of Hincks the printing of my dictionary <4> is calling upon me for much exertion, almost too much for my age. By the bye Harrison told me some time ago that you also were getting a dictionary printed – is that the case? If so, and you would like to see what I have done, I will send you some sheets of what I have completed, but should not wish them to go further I have not given or shewn them to any one. I know they are full of mistakes, but I believe they will be very useful to future investigators, if only as a list of words, of course incomplete I am always adding new words, and when it is in letters A or B I shall reserve them for a supplement. The work will be so long that I hardly hope to live to finish it. I therefore cannot give time enough to avoid errors, and on looking back, I see every day something deformed incorrect. I have now done something about 160 pages, and have barely used one tenth of my material. I must finish this long and tedious detail.
I am my Dear Sir Yours faithfully
Edwin Norris
H. Fox Talbot Esq
Notes:
1. Sir Francis Hincks (1807-1885), Irish-born Canadian politician and governor of British Guiana; brother of Rev Edward Hincks (19 Aug 1792 – 3 Dec 1866), Irish clergyman; Egyptologist & Orientalist.
2. These were the distinguished scholars of near Eastern study: Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson, 1st Baronet (1810–1895), orientalist; Prof Julius Oppert (1825–1905), German Assyriologist, active in Paris. Hincks was a very respected scholar, this is perhaps testament to his centrality to the study of near eastern artifacts.
3. Monthly Report.
4. Norris, Assyrian Dictionary (London: Williams and Norgate, 1872).