Louvre Museum

The Mesha stela boasts of a victory by the ninth-century B.C.E. Moabite king Mesha over the Israelites. The monument, also known as the Moabite Stone, records that Mesha conquered Israelite territory east of the Jordan and humiliated the tribe of Gad. Among the towns mentioned is Dibon (called Qarho in the stela), which the Bible lists as one of the encampments of the invading Israelites following the Exodus from Egypt. Critics who doubt the Bible’s historical accuracy regarding the Exodus point to the absence of Late Bronze Age remains from Dibon as proof of the Bible’s unreliability. The references to Qarho in Egyptian geographic lists indicate that Dibon did indeed exist during the Late Bronze Age, but has yet to be discovered by archaeologists.