90 



KNOWLEDGE. 



[April 2, 1894. 



(high), Baal (Lord), Moleck (King), and Adonai (My Lord). 

 As Sun-god, Baal had temples at Baalbek, Tyre, Tarsus, 

 Carthage, and Ekron. 



The Phoenician relics in the British Museum — the 

 classification and re-arrangement of which has just been 

 completed — occupy three rooms in the Northern Gallery of 

 the building. The archaic Cyprian sculptures (b.c. 650) 

 are for the most part crude in conception and conventional 

 in execution. The country being destitute of marble, the 

 figures are cut from a calcareous limestone, abounding in 

 holes and fossil shells, quite unfitted for purposes of 

 sculpture. Generally speaking, the bas-reliefs are superior 

 in execution to objects in the round. Most of the faces 

 are depicted with remarkably sharp-pointed noses — a 

 feature even more marked in the terra-cottas. Several 

 heads testify to Assyrian and Egyptian influence ; while 

 in the later works (b.c. 150) the results of Hellenistic 

 intercourse is manifest in improved artistic execution. 



One of the oldest known alphabetical inscriptions is that 

 of Mesha, King of Moab (b.c. 896), and is known as the 

 Moabite Stone. The original is in the Louvre, but an 

 excellent cast will be found in the Second Room. The 

 stone was discovered by Mr. Klein, a Prussian, at Diban, 

 a village on the east of the Dead Sea. It is of basalt, 

 rounded at both ends, about three and a half feet in height 

 by two feet in thickness and breadth, having on one face 

 thirty-four lines of inscription, each Hue about an inch 

 apart. When first seen by Mr. Klein it was in a most 

 perfect state of preservation, not a single piece being 

 broken off. As soon as open efibrts were made to secure 

 the treasure, difliculties with conflicting authorities un- 

 fortunately arose. Negotiations for its possession were 

 wot judiciously managed, and ultimately, rather than sur- 

 render the stone to the Turkish Government, the Arabs 

 determined to destroy it. They lighted a fire round it, and 

 when Bufiiciently heated threw on its sm-face cold water 

 and vinegar, thus causing it to crack and sjilit into frag- 

 ments. Fortunately a "squeezing" of the inscription had 

 previously been taken by a young attache of the French 

 Consulate, M. Ganneau. In the woodcut are reproduced the 

 first three lines of the inscription. The words are divided 

 from each other by means of points, and the lines or 

 verses by vertical strokes. The whole inscription gives 

 evidence of great fluency, and of long habituation in the 

 use of written characters. Of the undoubted age and 

 genuineness of this interesting relic of antiquity there can 

 be no reasonable doubt. An article by the Eev. A. Lowry 

 on " The Apocryphal Character of the Moabite Stone " 

 appeared in the Scottish Review for April, 1887, but the 

 conclusions of the writer are not accepted by other 

 European Semitic scholars. 



The stone was erected by Mesha, King of Moab, to 

 commemorate his successes against Omri, King of Israel, 

 and his descendants. This is the same Mesha whose 

 resistance to the united forces of Jehoram, .Jehoshaphat, 

 and the King of Edom is recorded in the third chapter of 

 II. Kings. Omri became King of Israel b.c. 929. The 

 date of the stone would be about thirty-nine years after- 

 wards — that is, 890 b.c. The characters of the inscription 

 are Phoenician of the Moabite dialect. The last four lines 

 are undecipherable. There is great similarity between the 

 Moabite and ancient Hebrew writing, which sufficiently 

 explains how it is that in all Biblical references to com- 

 munications between these people there is no reference on 

 any occasion to an interpreter. 



We append a transcription of the whole of the thirty- 

 four lines of writing. 



In June, 1880, an important discovery was made in 

 Jerusalem, in the ancient conduit which conveys the water 



through the hill and under the Mosque of Omar to the 

 Pool of Siloam. The length of the tunnel is one thousand 

 seven hundred and eight feet (five hundred and sixty-nine 



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The Moabite Stone. 

 Analysis of the first 



ANoKi McShA. BfN. 

 — IBoNI 1 'ABI. M^LaK. 

 TI. 'AChttE. 'ABI. 



B.C. 900. 



three lines. 



KaMoShGaD. MeLcK. Mo'AB [He] D— 



AL. Mo'AB SULishiN. ShaT V'ANoKi. MaLaK— 



Translation. 



1. I am Mesha, son of Kamoshgad, King of Moab, the X>- 



2. ibonite | My father reigned over Moab thirty years, and I reign- 



3. ed after my father. 



yards). It is not straight ; the passage winds con- 

 siderably, and reveals several cuh-de-sac, showing that the 

 engineering was defective. The inscription (of which a 

 cast will be found in the Second Room in the British 

 Museum) was found in a niche in the wall, about nineteen 

 feet from the mouth of the tunnel where it opens into the 

 Pool of Siloam. A spot, twenty-seven inches by twenty-six, 

 had been prepared in the solid wall on the right hand side 

 of the tunnel as one enters from the Pool, and made smooth 

 to receive the inscription. Being below the water-line, 

 before it could be copied it became necessary to lower the 

 water in the conduit. 



According to Prof. Sayce, some of the characters, as 

 waw, zaijin, and Zsadhe, are more archaic in shape than 

 the corresponding letters in the Moabite inscription. He 

 therefore regards the tunnel inscription as older than the 

 Moabite Stone, and assigns it to the age of Solomon. It 

 is, however, more generally held to date from about 

 750 B.C., the time of Hezekiah. 



