ABSTRACT
The first that we hear of Kerak is in the various references to Kir of Moab that are to be met with in the Old Testament. We learn from' this source that Mesha, King of Moab, was a sheepmaster who paid tribute to the King of Israel of " an hundred thousand lambs and an hundred thousand rams with the wool " i after the death of Ahab he revolted and succeeded in making Israel serve Moab for ei~hteen years. All that Mesha did in the way of victones is engraved on the celebrated Moab Stone that was discovered at Dibon in the last century; his defeats he omitted. If we are to believe the accounts given in the Bible, the Kings of Israel and Judah, after nearly dying of thirst in the wilderness, where they were provided with water at last through the agency of Elisha, gave Mesha a severe beating, and Moab "was destroyed from being a people." It is characteristic of Mesha, who was as confident that his god Kemosh directed the battle as were ever the Israelites that God gave the victory, that he offered up his son as a sacrifice to his god when affairs seemed desperate. The Israelites. destroyed the cities of Moab, leaving only one stone on another at Kir-
leaving no male heir, and he reigned from I 131 to I 144. This was a glorious period in the history of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. The great fortresses on the coast and in the north of western Palestine were erected at strategic points, protecting each other, and connected by military roads; in order to increase the protection afforded to eastern Palestine by Montreal and Petra and the castle of Ahamont, it was decided to fortify the already strong place known as the Stone of the Desert, Ie Crac du Desert, as it was also called, though la Pierre du Desert was the more usual name given by the Franks.
