The Lower Part of the Meharde Stele

Extract

Photographs of the lower part of a sculptured inscribed Neo-Hittite stele were brought to me at London University in May 1988 by its owner, Mr. Nassib Sabbagh, of Beirut. Visible on the obverse were the remains of a panel of sculpture showing a couchant lion facing right with a pair of human feet, frontally rendered, standing in the middle of its back. Below this were two lines of writing, running sinistroverse-dextroverse, and below that the remains of the tenon which would have fixed the stele in a morticed base. The lower right corner of the obverse was destroyed. Photographs of the sides showed on the right, three lines of inscription, of which only the lower part of the upper was preserved, the middle, sinistroverse, line was complete, and the upper part of the lower line only was preserved, while its lower part, and any further writing, was lost with the stele's lower right hand corner; and on the left, three complete lines of writing, running sinistroverse, dextroverse, sinistroverse, and below them space for a further line, which could have lost its writing through surface flaking, but was more probably uninscribed.