The Mesha Stele, also known as the 'Moabite Stone' is a black basalt stone, bearing an inscription by the 9th century BCE Moabite King Mesha. It was discovered in August 1868 at the ancient Dibon now Dhiban, Jordan, by Rev. F. A. Klein, a German missionary in Jerusalem. "The Arabs of the neighbourhood, dreading the loss of such a talisman, broke the stone into pieces; but a squeeze had already been obtained and most of the fragments were recovered and pieced together. A squeeze is a papier-maché impression. The squeeze and the reassembled stele are now in the Louvre Museum.
More recently, after the find of the Tel Dan inscription, French scholar Andre Lemaire identified a reference to King David in this inscription. Lemaire was able to identify a previously indistinguishable letter as a "d" in the phrase 'House of David', although some scholars question whether the word really is 'David'. Another stone, the Tel Dan Stele also contains a passage that may refer to the 'House of David', thus reinforcing the translation of the Mesha Stele and providing the first circumstantial evidence that there really was a King David.