event · E0204
Mesha Stele מצבת מישע
A basalt stele of Mesha king of Moab, thirty-four lines of Moabite in early alphabetic script — the longest royal inscription yet found from Iron Age Israel's world. Shown intact to the missionary F. A. Klein at Dhiban in 1868, smashed by its local owners a year later, and reassembled from the fragments around Clermont-Ganneau's paper squeeze; now in the Louvre (AO 5066). Mesha tells how "Omri king of Israel" oppressed Moab, and how he threw off Israel's yoke — the same rebellion Tanakh records from the other side in Melachim II 3. Line 18 carries the earliest secure extrabiblical occurrence of the name YHWH: Mesha dragged the vessels of YHWH from Nevo before his god Kemosh.
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I. Who
- Hebrew
- מצבת מישע
- Also known as
- Moabite Stone
- Era
- bible
II. When
- Traditional
- c. 3055 AM — within Yehoram of Israel's reign (3050–3062) on the atlas's schematic royal chronology
- Academic
- c. 840 BCE
- Date range
- c. 840 BCE
- Precision
- approximate
Why it matters
This stone is the other side of a war the Bible records. Melachim tells how Mesha king of Moab rebelled against Israel after Achav's death; here Mesha tells the same rebellion in his own words — naming "Omri king of Israel" who oppressed Moab, and boasting that he dragged the vessels of YHWH before his god Kemosh. It is the longest royal inscription yet found from ancient Israel's world, and that line is the earliest secure appearance of God's name outside the Tanakh. Two enemies, each telling its own version of one rebellion, agreeing that the other existed: for the ninth century BCE, evidence rarely comes stronger.
V. How do we know
| Claim | Evidence | Confidence | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| The intact stele was shown to the Anglican missionary F. A. Klein at Dhiban (biblical Divon in Moab) in 1868; during the bidding war that followed, its Bedouin owners shattered it in 1869, and the text survives through Clermont-Ganneau's paper squeeze, around which the recovered fragments — roughly two-thirds of the stone — were reassembled. It stands in the Louvre as AO 5066. | archaeology external | ★★★★★ | |
| The inscription names "Omri king of Israel" who "oppressed Moab many days," his son who succeeded him, and Israel repeatedly — an external, contemporary witness to the Kingdom of Israel (Kingdom of Israel) and the house of Omri. In line 18 Mesha says he took the vessels of YHWH from Nevo and dragged them before Kemosh: the earliest secure occurrence of the Tetragrammaton outside Tanakh.
Lemaire's proposed restoration of "house of David" (bt[d]wd) in line 31 is separately debated and not counted on here.
|
archaeology external | ★★★★★ | |
| Tanakh knows the same rebellion from the other side: "Mesha king of Moab was a sheep breeder" who paid Israel a tribute of a hundred thousand lambs and the wool of a hundred thousand rams, "but when Achav died, the king of Moab rebelled against the king of Israel." The punitive campaign of Yehoram, Yehoshafat, and Edom ends with Mesha sacrificing his firstborn on the wall and Israel withdrawing — while the stele is Mesha's own telling, in which Kemosh restores Moab's land. The two accounts share the rebellion and diverge in scope and outcome.
Confidence is for what each text states; whether the stele describes the aftermath of the Melachim II 3 campaign or a longer arc of the same revolt is discussed.
|
biblical archaeology | ★★★★★ | |
| The AM placement (c. 3055) is a schematic Mesorah Atlas reconstruction: Tanakh dates Mesha's rebellion after Achav's death (3048 AM on the atlas's chained northern-kings chronology) and the campaign against him under Yehoram of Israel (3050–3062); the stele, erected late in Mesha's reign, is set within that window. The cited sources establish the relative setting, not an absolute date for the stone. | tradition reconstruction | ★★☆☆☆ |