EXHIBIT OF BIBLICAL ANTIQUITIES. 969 



the Israelites, mentioning Medeba,' Atarotb,- and iSTebo,' where he slew 

 7,000 people and captnred Jahaz, which had been built by the King of 

 Israel. At the conclusion he also mentions a battle against Horonaim, 

 which is generally interpreted as referring to a successful war with the 

 Edomites who might have invaded the country from the south. It will 

 thus be seen that the contents of this comparatively brief historical 

 document add considerably to our knowledge of the happenings in the 

 ancient world in the ninth century B. C. The dialect of the inscrip- 

 tion differs but slightly from Hebrew, and the characters employed are 

 those of ancient Hebrew, the so-called Samaritan or Phenician. Aside 

 from its historical interest just mentioned, the Moabite stone is the 

 most important surviving relic of the Moabite civilization. It is the 

 oldest monument bearing a Semitic inscription, and its discovery was 

 of great importance for the history of the development of the alphabet, 

 proving, as it does, that the Greeks added nothing to the alphabet 

 which they received from the East.^ 



Oast of the Siloam inscription. — The pool or fountain of Siloam, 

 Hebrew, Shiloah, i. e., "sending,"' is mentioned in Isaiah viii, 6; "the 

 waters of Shiloah that go softly"^ where Jesus sends a blind man to 

 wash in the pool "and he came seeing." It is at the southeast end of 

 Jerusalem and was fed by the waters of a spring of the Gihon, the 

 moderu fountain of the Virgin, with which it is connected by a winding 

 tunnel, cut for a distance of 1,708 feet through the solid rock. 



The Siloam inscription was accidentally discovered in June, 1880, by 

 a schoolboy, who, while i)laying with other boys near the pool of 

 Siloam and wading up a channel cut in the rock which leads into the 

 pool, slipped and fell into the water. On rising to the surface he 

 noticed what looked like letters on the wall of the channel; this fact he 

 reported to Mr. Schick, the well-known architect and archteologist of 

 Jerusalem. Mr. Schick announced the discovery to the German Pales- 

 tine Exploration Society (Deutscher Palaestina Verein), and with much 

 labor made copies during the winter of 1880-81, which were sent to Eu- 

 rope. Owing, however, to the fact that the characters had become tilled 

 with a deposit of lime these copies were practically unintelligible.*' 



' Numbers xxi, 30; Joshna xiii, 9, etc. 



2 Numbers xxxii, 34; Joshua xvi, 2, etc. 



•^Numbers xxxii, 3; Isaiah xv, 2, etc. 



■•The inscriptioQ havS been translated by Noeldeke, Gmsburg, Gauneau, Sehlott- 

 niauii, W. Hayes Ward, Wright, Smend, and Socin, Die Inschrift des Koeuigs Mesa 

 vou Moab, Freiburg, 1886, and Canon Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text of the Books 

 of Samuel, with an Introduction on Hebrew Paleography, and the Ancient Versions 

 and Facsimiles of Inscriptions, Oxford and New York, 1890, pp. Ixxxiv-xciv ; compare 

 also A. H. Sayce, Fresh Light from the Ancient Monuments, p. 91. 



■''Nehemiah iii, 15, and John ix, 7. 



'A curious controversy has arisen as to the credit for the work of lowering the 

 level of the water in the cliaunel to render the inscription accessible. Dr. Guthe, 

 in tlie Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gescllschat't, XXXVI, p. 726, 

 claims that it was done at the expense of the German Palestine Kxploration Society ; 

 while the same claim is made for the London Palestine Exploration Fund. Quar- 

 terly Statement, 1881, p. 142; 1882. p. 1. 



