The Moabite Stone

MOABITE STONE, THE. An inscribed stone found in Moab and recording Moabite history. In 1868 F. A. Klein, a German missionary employed by the Church Missionary Society ([[Church of England]]), while traveling through the territory formerly occupied by the tribe of Reuben east of the Dead Sea, was informed by an Arab sheik of a remarkable stone inscribed with writing and lying at Dibon, near Klein’s route. The stone was bluish basalt, neatly cut into a monument about four by two feet (about one by one-half m.), with its upper end curved and a raised rim enclosing an inscription. Klein informed the authorities of the Berlin Museum, and meanwhile M. Ganneau of the French Consulate at Jerusalem and a Captain Warren made “squeezes” and so secured roughly the material of the inscription. While the French and the Germans were bargaining with the Turks for the stone, the Arabs, with Oriental astuteness, argued that if the stone as a whole was of value it would be far more valuable if cut to