Among the more important Semitic inscriptions, other than that on the Eshmunazar sarcophagus, are: (1) the inscription on fragments of sacred vessels of bronze from the temple of Baal Lebanon, which is assigned to the eleventh century b.c.; (2) the inscription of Mesha, king of Moab, on a slab of black basalt, known as the Moabite Stone, which is assigned to the ninth century b.c.; (3) the lion weights from Nineveh, bearing the names of Assyrian kings who reigned during the second half of the eighth century b.c.; and (4) the inscription on a tablet in a tunnel which conveys water from the Virgin's Pool in the Kedron Valley to the Pool of Siloam in the Tyropæon. The date of this inscription lies between the eighth and the sixth centuries b.c.
Fig. 52.—Inscription on Sacred Bowls (Baal Lebanon)
1. The Baal Lebanon Vessels. In 1876 M. Clermont-Ganneau bought from a Cypriote dealer some fragments of bronze plates bearing Phœnician characters (Fig. 52). They were traced to a peasant who had found them when digging, and who had broken up the metal in the hope that it was of gold. The industry and skill of MM. Renan and Clermont-Ganneau pieced the fragments together in such wise as to warrant the inference that they were portions of sacred bowls, an inference confirmed by the longest of the inscriptions, which declared that "this vessel of good bronze was offered by a citizen of Carthage, servant of Hiram, king of the Sidonians, to Baal Lebanon, his Lord," whose temple was one of the "high places" dedicated to the god.
Fig. 53.—The Moabite Stone
2. The Moabite Stone (Fig. 53). This, perhaps the most famous, and, certainly, one of the most important, of Semitic relics, was discovered in 1868 by Dr. Klein, a German missionary, during his travels in Moab. The Arabs who escorted him took him to see an inscribed stone, the Phœnician characters on which were beautifully cut in thirty-four lines. The doctor copied a few words, and resumed his journey. On reaching Jerusalem he made known his discovery, whereupon competition was started between the French and German Consulates for purchase of the coveted treasure. This aroused the suspicion of the Arabs, to whom the stone had become a sort of talisman on which the fertility of their crops depended—that is, when they had industry enough to plant them. Messengers sent by M. Clermont-Ganneau succeeded in taking a squeeze of the inscription, which made the Arabs still more hostile, and in the end, after the Turkish governor of Nablus had vainly tried to secure the stone for himself—of course to sell at a profit to the "infidel"—the Arabs put a fire under it, then poured cold water over it, and smashed it into fragments, which were distributed as charms among the tribe. But the tact of M. Clermont-Ganneau recovered nearly all the pieces, so that, a few lines excepted, the inscription is complete. The original is preserved in the Louvre, and a very good cast of it may be seen in the Phœnician department of the British Museum.
The inscription, which is written in a language resembling closely the Hebrew of the Old Testament, gives Mesha's account of his rebellion against the King of Israel, to whom he had hitherto paid yearly tribute of the wool of a hundred thousand lambs and a hundred thousand rams. Historically the monument is of high value. Mesha speaks of himself as the son of Chemoshmelek, whose position as the national god of the petty kingdom of Moab corresponds to that of Yahweh or Jehovah among the Israelites. The reference to Chemosh throws light on the correspondences in belief between the several Semitic peoples. The "high place" or altar of the god, his anthropomorphic character as angry, as urging his votaries to battle and to slaughter of their foes, giving them no quarter—all this is identical with the Hebrew conception of deity, so that the inscription, mutatis mutandis, reads like a transcript from the warlike annals of the Old Testament. From the epigraphic standpoint, which alone concerns us here, the inscription is regarded by Canon Taylor and other scholars as supporting the theory of M. de Rougé.
3. The Lion Weights (Fig. 54). Several examples of these were found by the late Sir Austin Layard in his first excavations at Nineveh. They are bilingual, the names of the Assyrian kings being usually in cuneiform writing, while the weights are indicated in Phœnician characters. Of course this evidences intimate trading relations between Assyria and Phœnicia, and the commercial dominance of the latter in the adoption of its weights and measures as the metrical standard of the former, and in the general use of the Phœnician alphabet for business purposes. The action of time has largely obliterated the inscriptions, but among the names of Assyrian kings which have been identified are Tiglath-Peser, Shalmaneser IV., Sargon II., and Sennacherib. The similarity between the Phœnician and Assyrian characters is shown in the inscription here reproduced, which is to scale of the original. It is on the eleventh lion, which weighs a little over twenty ounces, and therefore represents a maneh, a Hebrew weight used in estimating gold and silver, and believed to contain one hundred shekels of the former and sixty of the latter. The reading is maneh melek, "a maneh of the king." The name is not very legible, but is read by Professor Sayce as Shalmaneser, who reigned in the seventh century b.c.
