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14 November 1938
42 York Terrace, Regents Park
Dear Professor,
My bronchitis is gradually improving and I hope that before long it will be safe for me to visit you—perhaps this week.
My wife is in hospital for a week with a slight operation, but she devotedly spends her time there in pushing on with the translation.
In the meantime there are two small points I might ask you about, both raised by Strachey, whom Woolf got to read the book. They are both in the third part. On page 22 you speak of Egypt having been free from volcanoes, which so far as I know is correct and is relevant to your argument. You also say, however, that it is free from earthquakes, which I do not think is very relevant to the argument. Strachey points out that one of the pair of Colossi of Memnon at Thebes was broken in half by the earthquake of 27 B.C., (and repaired 200 years later by Septimius Severus). Actually an earthquake at Cairo was announced on the wireless a week ago.1
The other question is to know definitely about your choice of the English or American spelling for the great monotheist. Strachey writes “the usual English spelling is undoubtedly “Akhenaten”, the “e” being the indeterminate sound (Alexander Gardiner, Petrie, Davies, Newberry, Pendlebury, British Museum Catalogue, English Official Guide to Cairo Museum, etc.).2 The only time the spelling “Ikhnaton” occurs in English is in the Cambridge Ancient History and that is only because the chapters there were written by Breasted of Chicago,3 whom the Editors would, of course,