The Mesha Stele, a remarkable archaeological artifact from biblical times, stands at three feet tall and bears a 34-line inscription. This inscription commemorates the rebellion of Mesha, a vassal king of Moab, against the Israelites. André Lemaire, a renowned epigrapher, identified an intriguing phrase in line 31 of this stele dating back to the ninth century B.C.E. The phrase, "בת[ד]וד" (bt[d]wd), commonly translated as "House of David," is a significant reference to King David. It is worth noting that this reference predates the well-known Tel Dan inscription, which also mentions David. Recent studies conducted by scholars Israel Finkelstein, Nadav Na’aman, and Thomas Römer have re-evaluated the inscription and proposed an alternative interpretation. According to their findings, line 31 refers not to the "House of David" but rather to Balak, the Moabite king depicted in the biblical account of Balaam (Numbers 22–24).

[The] Canterbury Cathedral, sometimes called England Stone, is one of Europe's finest examples of the style we call Gothic. But what if I told you that pretty much every architectural feature in this Cathedral, built incidentally by the Norman French, with stone brought in specially from Normandy, had its origins in the Middle East and the Islamic world. It's the same with Notre Dame in Paris. When it caught fire in 2019, the world was transfixed and the French suffered a nationwide outpouring of grief.