On the chemistry of the ancient Assyrians / [R.C. Thompson].

Reginald Campbell Thompson

Date:: 1925

Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: On the chemistry of the ancient Assyrians / [R.C. Thompson]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

13/338 page 5

( Section 3) A tho view that the text related to the making of SmailM is his « Boson (in his Les Motaux, 59) attempted a translation of this text,but 1 think that he would himself not claim more for his version than that it was tentative. This was tho only text published! hut some considerable time ago Zimmorn had copied this and several tablets of a similar nature in the British Museum, recognizing that they dealt with formulae of this des¬ cription, and to him must 'be given the credit of having identi¬ fied thirteen more of the fifteen tablets given herein, as belonging to a separate class dealing with chemical results, lie lent his copies to Meissner, who In Bab^&ss, ii, 363, 1924,pub^ lished a further attempt at a translation of four sections in full (my Sect, 25,,f , BC , and T )and of one in part (my h). his translations, following up the suggestions which had already been made, shew something of the Assyrian methods of making glass,but , as 1 venture to think, his methods of identifying- the components wero a little too superficial to help a practical chemist to estimate the technique of the Assyrians in this branch of science. In May of this year, when my edition was nearly complete in MS, I learnt from an advance note in the ’Zeitschrift fuer Assy- riologie that Dr Zimmorn was also proposing to issue .an edition of them shortly. I therefore wrote to him at once, telling him how far my work had gone, and that I proposed to publish it, suggesting at the same time that as the problems were numerous and difficult, it might be well for our two editions to be kept entirely distinct and separate. I received a most courteous reply fom him,giving me an account of the history of the copying

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