Edward Hincks was born in Cork, and was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he became a fellow in 1813. In 1819 he was appointed Rector of Ardtrea, County Armagh, and in 1826 moved to the parish of Killyleagh, County Down where he remained until his death. He was an oriental scholar and published a Hebrew grammar, but it was in the field of Egyptian and Assyrian translation that he excelled. His contribution to the deciphering of cuneiform writing was extremely valuable, and he discovered the Persian cuneiform vowel system at the same time as Rawlinson discovered it in Baghdad. Many of his papers were published in the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy. In 1854 he published a Report to the Trustees of the British Museum respecting certain Cylinders and Terracotta Tablets with Cuneiform Inscriptions and a Letter on the Polyphony of the Assyrio-Babylonian Cuneiform Writing in 1863. There is a bust of him in the entrance of Cairo Museum as one of the pioneers of Egyptology.

Born:	19 August 1792
Died:	3 December 1866