Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Dibon

A titular see in Palæstina Tertia. Dibôn (Sept., Daibon or Debon) is mentioned in Numbers 33:45 as a station of the Hebrews on their way to the Promised Land. It was soon after occupied and rebuilt by the tribe of Gad (Numbers 32:34). It belonged later to the Rubenites (Joshua 13:17). At the time of the Prophets it was in the power of the Moabites. The ruins of the town stand at Dîbân, one and a half miles west of 'Arâ'ir (Aroer), ten miles south-east of M'kaôur (Machoerous), in the vilayet of Damascus. The masses of black basalt present a mournful aspect, strangely contrasting with that of the fertile table-land of Moab and vicinity of the Arnon (Wadi Modjib). There are an acropolis, cisterns, sepulchral grottoes, and a few Roman and Christian fragments. It was here also that Clermont Ganneau found the famous stele of Mesa, King of Moab, now at the Louvre. Mesa calls himself "the Dibonite". Dibon, as far as is known, never was a Greek see, but in the course of time became a Latin titular see.

SAYCE, Fresh Light from the Ancient Monuments, 77; TRISTRAM, The Land of Moab; BLISS in ''Palestine Explor. Fund, Quart. Statement (1895), 227; SCHICK, a plan of the ruins, in Zeitschr. d. Deutschen Palästina-Vereins'', II.

.