Moabite stone. This ancient stone bears some of the earliest writing in Hebrew-Phoenician characters. The stone is of black basalt. It is about 3 feet 8 inches (112 centimeters) high and 2 feet 3 inches (68 centimeters) wide. F. A. Klein, a missionary, found it in 1868 at Dhiban, now in Jordan but formerly in ancient Moab. The writing on the stone was probably carved by a Moabite scribe about 865 B.C. It is a good example of the Hebrew-Phoenician characters used at the time.