Letters

57 FRANCIS AVENUE
CAMBRIDGE 38, MASSACHUSETTS

March 13, 1957

Dear Dr. Velikovsky:

Many thanks for your good long letter of the 8th. I was very glad to receive it and to have such good news from you. I am glad of the success that your books have had and I am sure that your future volumes, that are so eagerly expected, will not only be successful, but will convince many of the soundness of your revolutionary theories.

I always marvel at the scope of your erudition and at the vastness of your field of research; it always makes me conscious of my own ignorance, by contrast.

I feel this particularly in connection with your questions. In the last few years I have been occupied with the Bible and have not kept up to date with historical and philological studies. My answers will display my ignorance.

1) I do not recall seeing a reference to Bittel’s publication of the Boghazkoi texts.

2) I have not seen any notice of Benveniste’s publication of the Carian inscription from Milasa.

3) There are some relations between Hurrian and Carian, but the two languages are far apart. On Carian you might look up: Louis it Jeanne Robert, La Carie. Histoire et géographie historique, avec le recueil des inscriptions antiques. Paris, Adrien-Maisonneuve.

4) My latest information on the Hittite pictographs is in I. J. Gelb, A Study of Writing. University of Chicago Press, 1952. I believe some progress has been made, but that a true decipherment of the inscriptions is not yet possible.

With my kind regards and best wishes,

Cordially,

Robert H. Pfeiffer