The historical portion of the Old Testament is singularly deficient in this essential point of confirmation by monumental evidence. Of Hebrew inscriptions there are none except that of the time of Hezekiah in the tunnel which brought water from the Pool of Siloam into the city; and the Moabite stone, which confirms the narrative in 2 Kings of the siege of Rabbah by Jehoshaphat and Jehoram, and their repulse after the sacrifice of his eldest son in sight of the armies by the King of Moab. Both of these inscriptions are of comparatively modern date, and close to or within the period when contact with the Assyrian Empire removes all uncertainty as to the history of Judæa and Israel under their later kings. The capture of Jerusalem by David and the building of the Temple there by Solomon are doubtless historical facts, but they cannot be said to receive any additional confirmation from monuments. There have been so many destructions and rebuildings of temples on this site, that it is difficult to say to what era the lower strata belong. It is apparent, moreover, from the Egyptian tablets of Tel-el-Amarna, the city founded by the heretic king, Amenophis IV., about 1500 B.C., that Jerusalem was a well-known city and sacred shrine prior to the Hebrew conquest, and even to the date of the Exodus. Professor Sayce tells us that on one of these tablets is written, "The city of the mountain of Jerusalem (or Urasalim), the City of the temple of the God Uras, whose name there is Marra, the City of the King, which adjoins the locality of the men of Keilah." Uras was a Babylonian deity, and Marra is probably the Aramaic Mare, "lord," from which it may be conjectured that Mount Moriah received its name from the Temple of Uras which stood there. Some of the other tablets show that in the century before the Exodus, Jerusalem was occupied by a semi-independent king, who claimed to have derived his authority from "the oracle of the mighty King," which is explained to mean a deity, though he acknowledged the superiority of Egypt, which still retained the conquests of the eighteenth dynasty in Palestine. This, however, relates not to the Hebrews, but to the state of things prior to their invasion, when Palestine was occupied by comparatively civilized races of Amorites and Canaanites, and studded with numerous fenced cities.