TALBOT9595

6 Michaels Grove
14 December 1869

My dear Sir,

Your letter is very welcome and will give me good hints. I quite adopt your reading asku and envy your scharfsennigkeit in guessing it, but I doubt not that Bellino ¹ took it for which is the way la is always written in this Inscription and I am inclined to think the original inscription had the same error, seeing how wonderfully accurate Bellino generally was. the ku is made so often with the first perpendicular [ill. del.] very thin, which gave rise to the error no doubt. I shall insert this and the other notes in my working copy of the dictionary, ² with the view of ulterior publication, but unluckily I am now almost without books. All my working books are worn out by constant handling, and are gone to the binders for reparation, but so soon as I get them again I shall insert your notes.

I have just completed an article on a line in what I call “Talbot’s slab,” (I mean the K 162.) ³ which contains sibbu taktu, which I translate “girdle and clasp” takta, Syrian signifying “a buckle” You will see all about it in the first sheets of my part 3. From close examination along with G. Smith. ⁴ I see that the often recurring word which you read adon , is really a gale. This alters the meaning greatly. The lady or goddess is conducted through seven gates, and her ornaments are taken off at each gate; on her return she passes through the gates, necessarily in reversed order, and gets them put on again. this is simple, but I find the whole difficult, and am obliged to make guess-work. I am inclined to think nigass may be eunuch – from nigah to “cut off” Heb ó÷ë, but in the dict^y I only say ‘attendant’; I hazard for ammeni the meaning numquid a me, and make the eni Do you take from me? “ammui ta[s?]pal,” I think in the line, but I am hurrying to have the post and cannot refer to my books, my working stock being absent. is the mark of a question, Latin anne.

I think your alti=asti very probable; the Hebrew is úùà whatever the points may – see êúùà his wife in Gen.iv.1.

I must close in haste, and may after all be too late

I remain Yours faithfully
Edwin Norris

H. Fox Talbot Esq
&c &c &c