15, Edith Villas. S. W.
Dec 19 / 72.
Dear Sir,
I present you a copy of “Deluge Tablet,” <1>It was copied a trifle less than original to make it uniform with the Museum series. Your suggestion is a good one I am sure. If you would like it, I will take a negative larger at my own cost, & send you a copy.
The cheque had better be sent to me, as I am responsible to them.
Yours trulyS. Thompson
H.F. Talbot Esq.
[envelope:]
H. Fox Talbot Esq
4. Circus
Bath.
Notes:
1. Working as a contractor to the British Museum, in 1872 Stephen Thompson published a volume of Photographs of the Collection in the British Museum. WHFT had suggested to Dr Samuel Birch (1813–1885), linguist, Keeper at the British Museum, London to use photographers instead of copyists in the excavations in Mesopotamia to take copies of inscriptions. [See Doc. No: 01239, and Doc. No: 01248, and Doc. No: 07311]. Thompson contributed the photographs to illustrate George Smiths' Chaldaen Account of the Deluge, from Terra Cotta Tablets, found at Nineveh, and now in the British Museum (London: Mansell, 1874). Subsequently, WHFT privately published Commentary on the Deluge Tablet, together with a second tablet in the British Museum relating apparently to the Deluge (London: printed by Harrison & Sons, 1875), based on papers he presented in the Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, v. 4, part 1, June 1875, pp. 49-83 and 129-131.