Griffith Institute Archive
Description of material
This description is based on the General International Standard Archival
Description ISAD(G)
1. Identity statement
Reference code n/a
Title Hincks MSS.
Dates of creation of the material Early 1830s to 1866.
Extent 3 file boxes, 2 small boxes, and 2 hard bound notebooks.
2. Context
Name of creator Hincks, Revd. Edward (1792-1866).
Administrative and biographical history
Irish Egyptologist, Assyriologist, and clergyman. Born, Cork 1792. Died, Killyleagh 1866. Educated at
Trinity College, Dublin, where he studied Hebrew. BA, 1812. Jnr. Fellow, 1813. MA, 1817. Ordained
priest, 1817. BD, 1823. DD, 1829. Rector of Ardtrea, 1819-25. Rector of Killyleagh, 1825-66.
Contributed considerably to the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs and Babylonian cuneiform.
Published many articles and books, including a Hebrew dictionary.
See Who Was Who in Egyptology (3rd ed. 1995), 202.
Custodial history The correspondence, and a small amount of other papers were in the possession of
Hincks's family. Prof. F. Ll. Griffith purchased them in 1932 from Hincks's grandson, Mr E. F.
Davidson. The hand copy of an article by Hincks made by W. R. Dawson was in the possession of Sir
A. H. Gardiner. The casts came from Mr E. F. Davidson.
Immediate source of acquisition Correspondence and other various other papers, part of the bequest
of Prof. F. Ll. Griffith. Hand copy of article, part of the bequest of Sir A. H. Gardiner. The casts
presumably came directly from Mr E. F. Davidson.
3. Content and structure
Scope and content Correspondence, notes, unfinished lecture, small number of casts from Egyptian
and Assyrian objects, and a hand copy made by W. R. Dawson of Hincks, On Certain Egyptian Papyri
in the British Museum published in "Transactions of the British Archaeological Association at its
Second Annual Congress held at Winchester, August 1845".
System of arrangement Kept as received. Correspondence has been arranged in alphabetical order.
4. Access and use
Legal status Property of the Griffith Institute.
Access conditions No restrictions.
Copyright conditions Copyright Griffith Institute, Oxford.
Language of material English, French, German, and Latin
Physical characteristics No problems.
Finding aids List in 'Mrs Waley's lists' folder. Catalogue for correspondence.
5. Allied materials area
Location of originals These are originals.
Existence of copies None.
Related units of description Griffith MSS 20.26 (unpublished review of Davidson's biography of
Hincks), and 20.27 (bibliography of Hincks and notes on his life).
Associated material Not known.
Publications Extracts from the correspondence are published in: Davidson, E. F. Edward Hincks. A
Selection from his Correspondence and a Memoir (1933) (see Dawson's introduction in Hincks's
correspondence catalogue for further information about this publication); Cathcart, K. J. (ed.), The
Edward Hincks Bicentenary Lectures (1994); id. in Netton, I. R. (ed.), Essays in Honour of Clifford
Edmund Bosworth. 1. The Hunter of the East (2000), 375-89; id. The Letters of Peter le Page Renouf
(1822-1897), ii (2002).
(February 2, 2004)