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An ancient north-west Semitic writing attested on a single document, the stele of King Meša of Moab, dating from the mid ninth century bce ( figure 15 ). The Moabite language is closely related to neighbouring Phoenician, and the alphabet, too, bears a close resemblance to its Phoenician counterpart ( table 18 ). A distinct feature of Moabite writing is the use of dots for marking word boundaries and dashes for sentences. See also semitic writing . Reading Friedrich 1966. Figure 15 Moabite inscription on the stele of King Meša’, ninth century bce (Musée du Louvre, Paris) Table 18 The Moabite alphabet (reversed, so as to read from left to right) ... log in or subscribe to read full text