The following is the results of your search for MOABITE STONE.
Moabite Stone: A basalt stone, bearing an inscription by King Mesha, which was
discovered at Dibon by Klein, a German missionary at Jerusalem, in
1868 It was 3 1/2 feet high and 2 in breadth and in thickness, rounded
at the top. It consisted of thirty-four lines, written in
Hebrew-Phoenician characters. It was set up by Mesha as a record and
memorial of his victories. It records
1. Mesha's wars with Omri,
2. his public buildings,
3. his wars against Horonaim. This inscription in a remarkable
degree supplements and corroborates the history of King Mesha
recorded in
(2 Kings 3:4-27) With the exception of a very few
variations, the Moabite language in which the inscription is
written is identical with the Hebrew. The form of the letters
here used supplies very important and interesting information
regarding the history of the formation of the alphabet, as well
as, incidentally, regarding the arts of civilized life of those
times in the land of Moab. This ancient monument, recording the
heroic struggles of King Mesha with Omri and Ahab, was erected
about B.C. 900 Here "we have the identical slab on which the
workmen of the old world carved the history of their own times,
and from which the eye of their contemporaries read thousands of
years ago the record of events of which they themselves had been
the witnesses." It is the oldest inscription written in
alphabetic characters, and hence is, apart from its value in the
domain of Hebrew antiquities, of great linguistic importance.
