Lacock Aug 24

Dear Sir

I am very much obliged to you for the copy of cuneiform writing. Curious as a specimen of photography but undecipherable from its broken condition – Moreover the characters in the photograph are reversed from Right to Left which perhaps you did not Consider. A looking glass should have been made use of, and the Camera pointed to the image of the inscription in the looking glass. Although your barrel inscription may have been copied before it came into your possession yet I do not believe the copy can be worth anything, since the original writing is itself so hard to read – Nevertheless it would be desirable to know where the copy was ever published?

Believe me Yours ever truly
H. F. Talbot

I cannot think the Homer and [Aenid?] that you obtained from Limonides to be genuine. The form of the letter [single character] proves nothing, since that form was previously known to archæologists and might have been Copied by him.

Sir T. Phillips