Mesha Stele
E142692
Moabite inscription
Northwest Semitic inscription
archaeological artifact
basalt stele
epigraphic source
inscription
The Mesha Stele is an ancient Moabite stone inscription from the 9th century BCE that records King Mesha’s victories and is one of the most important early sources for the history and language of the Levant.
All labels observed (5)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Mesha Stele canonical | 10 |
| Mesha Inscription | 2 |
| Mesha Stele inscription | 1 |
| Mesha Stone | 1 |
| Moabite Stone | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T1239481 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Mesha Stele Context triple: [Moabite, knownFrom, Mesha Stele]
-
A.
Behistun Inscription
The Behistun Inscription is a monumental multilingual rock relief commissioned by Darius the Great in present-day Iran, whose cuneiform texts were crucial in deciphering Old Persian and other ancient Near Eastern scripts.
-
B.
Stele of Novilara
The Stele of Novilara is an ancient inscribed stone monument from the Picene region of Italy, bearing one of the most significant and enigmatic examples of the North Picene language.
-
C.
Standard of Ur
The Standard of Ur is an ancient Sumerian artifact from around 2600–2400 BCE, a richly inlaid wooden box depicting scenes of war and peace that offers key insights into early Mesopotamian society.
-
D.
Cyrus Cylinder
The Cyrus Cylinder is an ancient clay artifact inscribed with a proclamation by the Persian king Cyrus the Great, often regarded as an early charter of human rights and a key source on his policies toward conquered peoples.
-
E.
Dream Stele of Thutmose IV
The Dream Stele of Thutmose IV is an ancient Egyptian inscribed stone slab commemorating a dream in which the future pharaoh was promised kingship by the sun god if he cleared the sand from the Great Sphinx of Giza.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Mesha Stele Target entity description: The Mesha Stele is an ancient Moabite stone inscription from the 9th century BCE that records King Mesha’s victories and is one of the most important early sources for the history and language of the Levant.
-
A.
Behistun Inscription
The Behistun Inscription is a monumental multilingual rock relief commissioned by Darius the Great in present-day Iran, whose cuneiform texts were crucial in deciphering Old Persian and other ancient Near Eastern scripts.
-
B.
Stele of Novilara
The Stele of Novilara is an ancient inscribed stone monument from the Picene region of Italy, bearing one of the most significant and enigmatic examples of the North Picene language.
-
C.
Standard of Ur
The Standard of Ur is an ancient Sumerian artifact from around 2600–2400 BCE, a richly inlaid wooden box depicting scenes of war and peace that offers key insights into early Mesopotamian society.
-
D.
Cyrus Cylinder
The Cyrus Cylinder is an ancient clay artifact inscribed with a proclamation by the Persian king Cyrus the Great, often regarded as an early charter of human rights and a key source on his policies toward conquered peoples.
-
E.
Dream Stele of Thutmose IV
The Dream Stele of Thutmose IV is an ancient Egyptian inscribed stone slab commemorating a dream in which the future pharaoh was promised kingship by the sun god if he cleared the sand from the Great Sphinx of Giza.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (59)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
Moabite inscription
ⓘ
Northwest Semitic inscription ⓘ archaeological artifact ⓘ basalt stele ⓘ epigraphic source ⓘ inscription ⓘ |
| alsoKnownAs |
Mesha Stele
ⓘ
surface form:
Mesha Stone
Mesha Stele ⓘ
surface form:
Moabite Stone
|
| approximateDate | circa 840 BCE ⓘ |
| biblicalCorrelation | relates to 2 Kings 3 ⓘ |
| commissionedBy |
Mesha
ⓘ
surface form:
King Mesha of Moab
|
| countryOfOrigin | Jordan ⓘ |
| creator |
Mesha
ⓘ
surface form:
King Mesha of Moab
|
| culture | Moabite ⓘ |
| currentLocation | Louvre Museum ⓘ |
| currentLocationCity | Paris ⓘ |
| damaged | yes ⓘ |
| damageEvent | broken in 1869 ⓘ |
| date | 9th century BCE ⓘ |
| depicts |
building projects of King Mesha
ⓘ
military victories of King Mesha ⓘ religious devotion to Chemosh ⓘ |
| discoveredBy | Frederick Augustus Klein ⓘ |
| discoveryDate | 1868 ⓘ |
| discoverySite | Dhiban, Jordan ⓘ |
| genre | victory inscription ⓘ |
| hasCopy | plaster casts in various museums ⓘ |
| height | about 1.15 metres ⓘ |
| historicalEvent | Mesha’s revolt against Israelite rule ⓘ |
| historicalPeriod | Iron Age II ⓘ |
| importance |
key extrabiblical source for the history of Israel and Moab
ⓘ
major source for Moabite language ⓘ major source for early Hebrew and Northwest Semitic linguistics ⓘ |
| inscriptionType | royal monumental inscription ⓘ |
| language | Moabite language ⓘ |
| material | black basalt ⓘ |
| mentionsDeity |
Chemosh
ⓘ
YHWH ⓘ
surface form:
Yahweh
|
| mentionsKingdom |
Northern Kingdom of Israel
ⓘ
surface form:
Kingdom of Israel
Kingdom of Moab ⓘ |
| mentionsPeople |
Israelites
ⓘ
Moabites ⓘ |
| mentionsPlace |
Ataroth
ⓘ
Dibon ⓘ Horonaim ⓘ Jahaz ⓘ Medeba ⓘ Nebo ⓘ |
| museumInventoryNumber | Louvre AO 5066 ⓘ |
| numberOfLines | 34 ⓘ |
| originalLocation |
Dhiban
ⓘ
ancient Dibon ⓘ |
| reconstructionMethod | based on squeezes and fragments ⓘ |
| region |
Levant region
ⓘ
surface form:
Levant
|
| religiousAspect | votive dedication to Chemosh ⓘ |
| scriptDirection | right-to-left ⓘ |
| thickness | about 60 centimetres ⓘ |
| width | about 60 centimetres ⓘ |
| writingSystem |
Nabataean alphabet
ⓘ
surface form:
Moabite script
|
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Mesha Stele Description of subject: The Mesha Stele is an ancient Moabite stone inscription from the 9th century BCE that records King Mesha’s victories and is one of the most important early sources for the history and language of the Levant.
Referenced by (15)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
Mesha Stone
this entity surface form:
Moabite Stone
this entity surface form:
Mesha Inscription