126 
in ra<*s, and receiving a spear-wound in the leg. After this the Arabs lighted 
a fire* under the stone, and throwing water upon it, broke rt into fe S“ents 
Since then, squeezes have been taken of the two large and certain smaUer 
fragments and as the matter now stands, out of the !, 000 le ters inserted 
on the stone, 669 have been preserved. At present, July, 1872, the 
ments are stored in a room at the consulate at Jerusalem and are the pro- 
perty of M. Ganneau, who has refused an offer of £Z00 for them made by t 
British Museum : it may be interesting to add that he has recently reprnt 
having deciphered the name of David on one of the fragments M. Deutsch 
speakintr of the stone, says “ It is an enormous gain to palamgraphy and 
Semitic°science, and it is unquestionably the very oldest Semitic lapidary 
record of importance as yet discovered, and apart from certain geographical 
and other data given in it which are already incontestable, it illustrates to 
a hitherto unheard of degree, the history of our own writing- 1 mean that 
which we all use at this hour. Nearly the whole of the Greek alphabet is 
found here ; not merely Mar to the ‘ Phomician ’ shape, b “‘ “ 
with it as can well be. Not merely such letters as the A P M N S 0 Q 
(Koppa), &c„ but even the E-one of the letters supposed to have been added 
during the Trojan war by Palamedes, because not extant m the original 
< Cadmean 1 alphabets of constant occurrence here (as Samech). Further, 
will the knotty digamma question receive a new contribution by the shape 
of the vav in this monument, which is distinctly the Gree T ano er 
letter of supposed recent origin. . . . And another thing wih become clear 
viz that the more primitive the characters, the simpler they become ; not, 
often supposed, the more complicated, as more in. accordance with some 
P Tforhear^ivhi e g any of the various translations of portions of the inscrip- 
tion, because until the whole of the. fragments are recovered (but lew are 
now wanting), all attempts at translation must he premature, and can on y 
lead to controversy and dispute ; before quoting from M. ^ . 
remarks made at Oxford, I may add that, speaking generally, the inscrip- 
tion “ not merely confirms or illustrates the narrative of the Second Book of 
Kings, but it adds to onr knowledge.” 
M. Deutsch alluded to the number of decipherments and translations, 
hypotheses and suggestions, to which this stone had already given use, 
and dwelt upon the fact that, apart from the precise date of this Kin 
Mesha, which indeed was still a moot point, very little was doubtful of that 
which really existed on orof the stone. The chief difficulty and the variance 
of opinion arose from the questionable letters, the gaps, and lacun* though 
even these could scarcely affect the general gist of the monument. , Its la. 
guaoe was easy and translucent even to a beginner, though, will-o -the-wisp 
Ike: words suddenly appeared which, either from false transcription or some 
other cause, not merely interrupted, hut seemed to subvert the whole 
ing and structure. He had from the very outset, and for very good Reasons, 
ventured to heg the world at large, as well as the learned not to be has y. 
The great fact of this intensely important find was clear at first sight ; also 
