Moabite Stele 980 BCE
For translation methodology see: How to Translate Alphabetic Akkadian Texts
(May 24, 2023) This text is a debate and discussion about a drought between a life priest and an emotion-magic (magick) crafter. Both tend to blame each other. According to the life-priest, the only valid motion power (magic) are the astrological powers. The life-priest is claiming that emotion generated magic is interfering with these astrological powers. These motion powers are needed to push the fertility fluids through the life network in order to trigger Yahu to manifest life forms.
The earliest historical attestation of the word "Yahweh" is found in Line 18. The word means "power of Yahu." This provides more evidence that the tribe of Benjamin which composed this stele were the ancestors of Jewish culture who were forced to cross the Jordan River around the then ruined city of Jericho because of the drought and locust invasion mentioned in the text. (The Benjaminite's then began to build a city on the ruins of Jericho.)
The drought mentioned in this text must be the drought dated to 980 BCE. The text reads:
(May 3, 2023) Droughts separate the archaeological periods in the Levant. States weakened by local droughts were often subject to raids right after the droughts by Mesopotamian empires which were unaffected due to their irrigation. Below is the latest widely accepted chronology proposed by Amihai Mazar in 2014 shown below:
A series of Israelite settlements on the marginal agricultural lands east of the Dead Sea was established around the wadi Mujib during the early Iron Age 1B period (1140-980 BCE). These seem to have been motivated mostly by the wealth produced by local mineral deposits such as copper. The largest copper mine was the one at Khirbet en-Nahas located straight south and slightly west of the Dead Sea.
Many of these settlements were abandoned during the drought of 980 BCE (Finkelstein and Lipschits 2011) just after the Moabite stele was composed.
The Egyptian Pharoah during this drought was Orsokon the Elder who is also known as Akheperra setepenra. He ruled between 984 and 978 BCE which was during the mysterious 3rd intermediate period’s 21 dynasty of Egyptian history. (Shaw 2002).
With the return of the rains the kingdom began to slowly re-establish itself but before it could fully do so Egyptian Pharoah Shishonq (940 - ?) raided the south and took control of the copper trade. Sheshonq I was the founder of the Egyptian 22 dynasty. This left the remaining people of Moab weak and poor. They became known as the tribe of Reuben in the Hebrew Scriptures. After the 840 Israelite civil war this land started being called Moab by the Hebrew Scriptures.