Tel Dan Stele

Overview

It consists of several fragments making up part of a triumphal inscription in Aramaic, left most probably by Hazael of Aram-Damascus, an important regional figure in the late 9th century BCE. Hazael (or more accurately, the unnamed king) boasts of his victories over the king of Israel and his apparent ally the king of the "House of David" (bytdwd). It is considered the earliest widely accepted reference to the name David as the founder of a Judahite polity outside of the Hebrew Bible, though the earlier Mesha Stele contains several possible references with varying acceptance. A minority of scholars have disputed the reference to David, due to the lack of a word divider between byt and dwd, and other translations have been proposed. The Tel Dan stele is one of four known inscriptions made during a roughly 400-year period (1200-800 BCE) containing the name "Israel", the others being the Merneptah Stele, the Mesha Stele, and the Kurkh Monolith.

The Tel Dan inscription generated considerable debate and a flurry of articles, debating its age, authorship, and authenticity; however, the stele is generally accepted by scholars as genuine and a reference to the House of David.

Discovery

Fragment A of the stele was discovered in July 1993 by Gila Cook of the team of Avraham Biran studying Tel Dan in the northern part of modern Israel. Fragments B1 and B2 were found in June 1994. The stele was not excavated in its "primary context", but in its "secondary use".

The fragments were published by Biran and his colleague Joseph Naveh in 1993 and 1995.

Text

The following is the transcription using Hebrew letters provided by Biran and Naveh. Dots separate words (as in the original), empty square brackets indicate damaged/missing text, and text inside square brackets is reconstructed by Biran and Naveh:

1. מר.עוגזר 2. .אבי.יסקתלחמה.בא 3. וישכב.אבי.יהך.אלה.ויעל.מלכי 4. ראל.קדם.בארק.אביהמלך.הדדא 5. אנה.ויהך.הדד.קדמיאפק.מן.שבע 6. י.מלכי.ואקתל.מלען.אסרי.א 7. כב.ואלפי.פרש.רם.בר. 8. מלך.ישראל.וקתליהו.בר 9. ך.ביתדוד.ואשם. 10. ית.ארק.הם.ל 11. אחרן.ולה 12. לך.על.יש 13. מצר.ע

Romanized: 1. mr.’wgzr 2. .‘by.ysqtlḥmh.b‘ 3. wyškb.‘by.yhk.‘lh.wy’l.mlky 4. r‘l.qdm.b‘rq.‘byhmlk.hdd‘ 5. ‘nh.wyhk.hdd.qdmy‘pq.mn.šb’ 6. y.mlky.w‘qtl.ml’n.‘sry.‘ 7. kb.w‘lpy.prš.rm.br. 8. mlk.yšr‘l.wqtlyhw.br 9. k.bytdwd.w‘šm. 10. yt.‘rq.hm.l 11. ‘ḥrn.wlh 12. lk.’l.yš 13. mṣr.’

Translated in English:

1... and cut 2. my father went up e fought at 3. and my father lay down, he went to his. And the king of I 4. rael entered previously in my father's land, Hadad made me king, 5. And Hadad went in front of me, I departed from the seven 6. s of my kingdom, and I slew nty kin, who harnessed th 7. riots and thousands of horsemen (or: horses). ram son 8. king of Israel, and killed iahu son of 9. g of the House of David, and I set 10. their land into 11. other 12. led over Is 13. siege upon

Content

In the second half of the 9th century BCE (the most widely accepted date for the stele), the kingdom of Aram, under its ruler Hazael, was a major power in the Levant. Dan, just 70 miles from Hazael's capital of Damascus, would almost certainly have come under its sway. This is borne out by the archaeological evidence: Israelite remains do not appear until the 8th century BCE, and it appears that Dan was already in the orbit of Damascus even before Hazael became king in c. 843 BCE.

The author of the inscription mentions conflict with the kings of Israel and the 'House of David'. The names of the two enemy kings are only partially legible. Biran and Naveh reconstructed them as Joram, son of Ahab, King of Israel, and Ahaziah, son of Joram of the House of David. Scholars seem to be evenly divided on these identifications. It is dependent on a particular arrangement of the fragments, and not all scholars agree on this.

In the reconstructed text, the author tells how Israel had invaded his country in his father's day, and how the god Hadad then made him king and marched with him against Israel. The author then reports that he defeated seventy kings with thousands of chariots and horses. In the very last line there is a suggestion of a siege, possibly of Samaria, the capital of the kings of Israel. This reading is, however, disputed.

Configuration

The stele was found in three fragments, called A, B1 and B2. There is widespread agreement that all three belong to the same inscription, and that B1 and B2 belong together. There is less agreement over the fit between A and the combined B1/B2: Biran and Naveh placed B1/B2 to the left of A (the photograph at the top of this article). A few scholars have disputed this, William Schniedewind proposing some minor adjustments to the same fit, Gershon Galil placing B above A rather than beside it, and George Athas fitting it well below.

Dating

Archeologists and epigraphers put the earliest possible date at about 870 BCE, whilst the latest possible date is "less clear", although according to Lawrence J. Mykytiuk it could "hardly have been much later than 750". However, some scholars (mainly associated with the Copenhagen school) – Niels Peter Lemche, Thomas L. Thompson, and F. H. Cryer – have proposed still later datings.

Cracks and inscription

Two biblical scholars, Cryer and Lemche, analyzed the cracks and chisel marks around the fragment and also the lettering towards the edges of the fragments. From this they concluded that the text was in fact a modern forgery. Most scholars have ignored or rejected these judgments because the artifacts were recovered during controlled excavations.

Authorship

The language of the inscription is a dialect of Aramaic. Most scholars identify Hazael of Damascus (c. 842 – 806 BCE) as the author, although his name is not mentioned. Other proposals regarding the author have been made: George Athas argues for Hazael's son Ben-Hadad III, which would date the inscription to around 796 BCE, and J-W Wesselius has argued for Jehu of Israel (reigned c. 845 – 818 BCE).

"House of David"

Since 1993–1994, when the first fragment was discovered and published, the Tel Dan stele has been the object of great interest and debate among epigraphers and biblical scholars along the whole range of views from those who find little of historical value in the biblical version of Israel's ancient past to those who are unconcerned about the biblical version, to those who wish to defend it.

Its significance for the biblical version of Israel's past lies particularly in lines 8 and 9, which mention a "king of Israel" and a "house of David". The latter is generally understood by scholars to refer to the ruling dynasty of Judah. However, although the "king of Israel" is generally accepted, the rendering of the phrase bytdwd as "house of David" has been disputed by some. This dispute is occasioned in part because it appears without a word divider between the two parts. The significance of this fact, if any, is unclear, because others, such as the late Anson F. Rainey, have observed that the presence or absence of word-dividers (for example, sometimes a short vertical line between words, other times a dot between words, as in this inscription) is normally inconsequential for interpretation.

The majority of scholars argue that the author simply thought of "House of David" as a single word – but some have argued that "dwd" (the usual spelling for "David") could be a name for a god ("beloved"), or could be "dōd", meaning "uncle" (a word with a rather wider meaning in ancient times than it has today), or, as George Athas has argued, that the whole phrase might be a name for Jerusalem (so that the author might be claiming to have killed the son of the king of Jerusalem rather than the son of the king from the "house of David".

Other possible meanings have been suggested: it may be a place-name, or the name of a god, or an epithet. Mykytiuk observes that "dwd" meaning "kettle" (dūd) or "uncle" (dōd) do not fit the context. He also weighs the interpretive options that the term bytdwd might refer to the name of a god, cultic object, epithet or a place and concludes that these possibilities have no firm basis. Rather, he finds that the preponderance of the evidence points to the ancient Aramaic and Assyrian word-patterns for geopolitical terms. According to the pattern used, the phrase "House of David" refers to a Davidic dynasty or to the land ruled by a Davidic dynasty. As an alternative, Francesca Stavrakopoulou remains sceptical about the significance and interpretation of the inscription and claims that it does not necessarily support the assumption that the Bible's David was a historical figure since "David" which can also be translated as "beloved" could refer to a mythical ancestor. In Schmidt's view it is indeed likely that the correct translation is "House of David."