The consistent human settlement in and around Dhiban suggests that this place remained prominent in local knowledge, even when sedentary life was absent. To European audiences, however, Dhiban's importance was not fully realized until 1868, when locals revealed to missionary F.A. Klein what became known as the Mesha Inscription. This basalt stele described the military successes of Mesha king of Moab against Israel and caused an instant sensation as an apparent independent confirmation of the Hebrew Bible's 2 Kings 1 and 3. After 1868, travelers and scholars began to visit Dhiban regularly, with a measured topographic map of the site being produced by Duncan Mackenzie in 1910 with the sponsorship of the Palestine Exploration Fund (Mackenzie 1913 ). Excavations, however, did not begin here until the mid-20th century. From 1950 to 1953, under the successive direction of Fred Winnett, William Reed, and Douglas Tushingham, the American Schools of Oriental Research concentrated their soundings in the southeast corner of the site, exposing an Iron Age fortification system, a Nabataean temple, a Byzantine church, and Early and Middle Islamic dwellings (Tushingham 1972; Winnett and Reed 1964). William Morton supervised an additional three seasons in 1955, 1956, and 1965, concentrating on Dhiban's acropolis (Field L) and north side (Field H) (Morton 1989). After these efforts, archaeological investigations ceased for nearly four decades. In the late 1990s, Chang-ho Ji conducted a survey of the Dhiban Plateau that identified several settlements in Dhiban's vicinity (Ji and Lee 2000). In 2002, Jordan's Department of Antiquities began an excavation and restoration program (al-Mahameed 2003), and soon after, in 2004, Bruce Routledge, Benjamin Porter, and Danielle Steen initiated the Dhiban Excavation and Development Project (Porter eta/. 2005). Before the Moabites

While evidence for Palaeolithic through Chalcolithic settlements has been found in Dhiban's vicinity (Cordova, Foley, and Nowell2005), the first substantial settlement of Dhiban's tall appears to be during the Early Bronze Age. In William Morton's excavations, Canaanean blades and large quantities of pottery dating typologically to the Early Bronze II period (ca. 3100-2750 BCE) were found, along with Iron Age I material in secondary deposits (Routledge 2004: Fig. 8.5). The only probable in situ Early Bronze Age deposits are a series of truncated fill layers in Morton's area H-VII associated with a fragment of a curvilinear wall (Morton 1989: 242-43). A ceramic bowl decorated with radial burnishing published by Tushingham may indicate that settlement continued into the Early Bronze Age III (ca. 2750-2300 BCE) (Tushingham 1972: Fig. 3.52).