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Moabite Stone: This was the genuine ninth century B.C. commemorative inscription on basalt which was found whole in 1868 in ancient Moab, on the east side of the Dead Sea. Often referred to as the Mesha Stele, for its author King Mesha of Moab, it confirms the Biblical account of 2 Kings 3:4ff in which the kings of Israel and Judah are defeated by the king of Moab. Because Shapira’s fragments were written, like the Moabite Stone, in paleo-Hebrew, and words in both texts were separated by dots, it was thought that Shapira had been directly inspired to forge the Deuteronomy manuscripts by this then-recent find.