September 17th 1871
margate Chanet.
My dear Sir
I have had forwarded to me here your note, I am far away from all Assyrian and have not done much since my illness – I feel honored by your asking my opinion regarding this Text, I must say in the first instance that we are all greatly indebted to you for detecting this interesting tablet and bringing it to the notice of the world I perceive that some of the defects I noticed in your former account were only caused by the defective copy There are still some points on which we differ, but I am sure if we could talk them over, and discuss the other inscriptions in which the words occur we should both arrive at the same <ill. del.> conclusion respecting them – I have not at present the chance of doing what I should wish in that way as a misfortune has happened to me, a person staying in my house at London while we are at Margate has caught the small pox and now lays ill there – all my papers are at home and even when I reach London I must not go to the house because of the infection as I have a little family.
I will however notice one or two points. In line 9 <cuneiform> is “ana imni u sumili”. “To the right and left – You will find the values right and left in a passage of Assurbanipal in the war with Teumman but I have no copy by me and cannot recollect the page – These values are based on a <ill. del.> number of inscriptions in which I have found the words right hand left hand right foot &c in positions where there can be no mistake – In the passage you quote from Vol II <cuneiform> is not an equivalent of tartan but I have not got the copy by me or I think I might explain it, the first character in the passage quoted (Page 6 of your pamf) is <cuneiform> and not <cuneiform> this much I recollect. The word in line 10 <cuneiform> which you translate “I send“ ca is the third person of the verb, not the first, the first person would be al-tap-par, there are a few other points but the only way to set them right is by showing other passages in which the words occur – this I have no chance of doing at present – I will hop however promise to make a translation of the whole tablet some day where I will forward you a copy – but I do not want to interfere or hinder your prior right to publish this text which you first discovered so I shall wait until sometime after your publication – Your will be glad to learn that the tablet about the Goddess Ishtar an which you noticed some years back is now nearly complete, I have found the missing end of the tablet and part of a duplicate, it is now lithographed in full and will come out in the next volume of Inscriptions 22 sheets of which are already on the stone – Do you know of a Public school I could get a son into? I have a boy nearly 8 years old and should like to get him into a good school if I could
Yours respectfully
George Smith
H. F. Talbot Esq