Fragments of the stele, found about 24 km east of the Dead Sea in 1868, are now kept in the Louvre Museum in Paris.
The Mesha Stele, also called the Moab Stone, is a black basalt stone slab that is today considered by historians and linguists to be the greatest source of the Moab language. And only now have they been able to definitively confirm that it contains direct references to King David, writes the Jerusalem Post.
Focus.Technologies own telegraph channel . Subscribe to not miss the latest and most interesting news from the world of science!
The stele itself was found in various fragments about 24 km east of the Dead Sea in 1868. Today it is kept in the Louvre Museum in Paris. It is the most detailed inscription describing the northern kingdom of Israel today. Although damaged in 1869, the text was printed even before that.
A long story is engraved on the plate of how Mesha, king of Moab, went to war against Israel. While not entirely accurate, the events described in it coincide with the same events in chapter 3 of the Book of Second Samuel (2 Kings).
House of David
The text mentions the God of Israel, the “House of David,” and the “Altar of David.” The “House of David” is a dynasty of Jewish kings descended from King David. However, until now, scientists have not been convinced of the correctness of the interpretation and translation of these lines.
The Moabite phrase “House of David” consists of five letters. bt dwd. IT sounds like a modern Hebrew word house — byteconstructive to beat. AND dwd can be considered modern Hebrew daled wow (the letter, in this case, actually Wow ) pensivewhere your name is written David.
Until now it was entirely possible to decipher and understand only the first and fourth letters of the sequence, bet and Wow. Researchers André Lemaire and Jean-Philippe Delorme reviewed the evidence in an article titled “The Meshi Stella and the House of David,” published late 2022 in the journal Biblical Archeology Review.
They write: “In 2015, a team from the USC West Semitic Research Project took new digital photographs of both the restored stele and the paper print. The researchers used a technique called Reflectance Transformation Imaging to digitally view the artifact from different angles, and then stitched it together. to create an accurate 3D digital reproduction of the subject.
This method is especially valuable because it is digital visualization that allows you to control the lighting of the painted work so that hidden, weak or damaged carvings and drawings become visible.
So, in 2018, the Louvre took these new high-resolution images and reflected light on them. This allowed the researchers to get a much clearer picture of ancient records. And this made it possible to see the evidence of the other three letters. tab (in modern Hebrew annex), daletand dalet.
How similar are Moabite and Hebrew
According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, these languages of that period differed only dialectically. The Hebrew language (and ultimately Biblical Hebrew) was the first language of the Jews spoken in Ancient Israel.
Scholars Dearman and Jackson write in their 1989 book A Study of the Mesha and Moab Inscription that Moabite and Hebrew are likely to be similar and mostly consonant.
Previously Focus He wrote about real grammar hacking and how scientists finally managed to solve an ancient grammar riddle.
Source: Focus
Ashley Fitzgerald is an accomplished journalist in the field of technology. She currently works as a writer at 24 news breaker. With a deep understanding of the latest technology developments, Ashley’s writing provides readers with insightful analysis and unique perspectives on the industry.