'Extract from a letter addressed by Major Rawlinson to Mr Norris, dated Bisitun, 20 July 1847' in which he writes of his arrival a week previously and the collecting of scaffolding and ladders in order to examine the great sculpture. He writes that he has been poorly repaid for his trouble as the inscriptions are proving difficult.

'Extract from a letter of Major Rawlinson addressed to Mr Norris, dated Behistun, Sept. 20, 1847' in which he is delighted to report that having returned to the site ten days previously, with renewed health and spirit, he has found a considerable portion of the Babylonian inscription to be legible. He has made copies of the inscription using a powerful telescope resulting in him obtaining a list of Babylonian names and a 'tolerable' vocabulary.

The papers of John Romer consist of:

• An untitled translation beginning: "Translation of the first fifteen verses of Col. 1 of the Behistun inscription, being done into the literal and schismatic Persian rejecting Arabic works". Romer provides a description of his translation in English and a copy of the fifteen verses in Persian. He acknowledges the work that Sir Henry Rawlinson undertook on the inscriptions. Six sheets of paper, 20 sides. The final page bears the label in a different hand, "Persian Language, J. Romer Esq."
• A letter to the Bombay Gazette found within the 1687 Complementum thesauri linguarum Orientalum by Franciszek Meninski, (1623-1698). This Thesaurus was donated to the the Royal Asiatic Society by John Romer. The letter to the Gazette takes issue with a contemporary evaluation of the Dabistan, a seventeenth century work in Persian, which is a unique study of different religious creeds. The letter gives some explanation of the Dabistan and provides some examples. It is dated 20 July 1820, handwritten, 8 sides.