The stele serves as archaeological proof of some of the stories written in the Bible
In 1868, a French missionary made an incredible discovery in the ruins of an ancient Moabite town, in what is now Jordan. He stumbled upon the Mesha Stele, a four-foot-tall black stone dating back to 840 BCE.
The stele is written in Moabite, a language that closely resembles the characters and structure of ancient Hebrew. It documents a victory by King Mesha of Moab over King Omri of Israel.
Its discovery triggered a colonial frenzy, as European nations scrambled to claim the artifact, while local Bedouin tribes refused to hand it over. The stele itself was even destroyed to pieces, but not before a French emissary was able to make an imprint of the text – that papier-mache cast is what helped archaeologists learn what was inscribed and guided conservationists in piecing it back together.