Samuel Birch

On 2 January 1872 Samuel Birch told the Society of Biblical Archaeology that the Cypriot script was a form of Greek. Robert Hamilton Lang had handed him the Dali bilingual, and Birch passed it to George Smith to study; Lang and Smith backed his announcement². Birch (1813-1885) never worked in Cyprus⁴. Masson places him in the Museum's oriental department from 1866¹.

He was the Museum's regular correspondent for Luigi Palma di Cesnola. The Museum's Western Asiatic department holds their letters, which run from 1870 to 1881². Between August 1874 and April 1876 Cesnola sent him photographs and drawings of finds from Amathus and Kourion⁵. Marangou says that in December 1870 Cesnola offered the Museum the 1,277 Golgoi pieces and that C. T. Newton rejected the proposal². Six boxes from Cesnola reached the Museum on 30 November 1875².

In September 1876 the Museum bought from Cesnola the series registered 1876.9-9, 1-127, mostly vases, with Birch as intermediary. Masson gives the payment as 300 pounds in two instalments of 213 and 87 pounds¹; Marangou describes Birch telling Cesnola that the Trustees would buy a selection he had chosen for 213 pounds². In November 1876 Birch and Newton reported on the Curium collection of about 1,500 objects, for which 12,000 pounds was asked, and recommended its purchase. The Trustees minuted it on 11 November, the sale did not go through, and the collection went to New York².

Birch also befriended Alessandro Palma di Cesnola, who wrote the acquaintance ripened into "a very devoted friendship". Birch wrote the introduction to Alessandro's Salaminia³.