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The Tel Dan Stele is a fragmentary stele containing an Aramaic inscription which dates to the 9th century BCE. It is the earliest known extra-biblical archaeological reference to the house of David. [1] [2] The stele was discovered in 1993 in Tel-Dan by Gila Cook, a member of an archaeological team led by Avraham Biran.
Around this time, the Tel Dan stele was created by the Aramaeans, during one of the periods of their control of Dan. When the Assyrian empire expanded to the south, the kingdom of Israel initially became a vassal state, but after rebelling, the Assyrians invaded and the town fell to Tiglath-Pileser III in 733/732 BCE.
Tel Dan Stele: Israel Museum: 1993, Tel Dan: c.800 BC: Old Aramaic: Significant as an extra-biblical corroboration of Israel's past, 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.
The Sarcophagus of Eshmunazar II was the first of this type of inscription found anywhere in the Levant (modern Jordan, Israel, Lebanon, Palestine and Syria). [1] [2]The Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions, also known as Northwest Semitic inscriptions, [3] are the primary extra-Biblical source for understanding of the societies and histories of the ancient Phoenicians, Hebrews and Arameans.
Biran's most important discovery at the Tel was an inscription on a slab of basalt, known as the Tel Dan Stele, that consists of 13 lines in ancient Aramaic script that mention The House of David. Regarding the significance of this inscription Hebrew University archaeologist Professor Amnon Ben-Tor said: [3]
The Tribe of Dan (Hebrew: דָּן, "Judge") was one of the twelve tribes of Israel, according to the Torah.According to the Hebrew Bible, the tribe initially settled in the hill lands bordering Ephraim and Benjamin on the east and Judah and the Philistines on the south but migrated north due to pressure of their enemies, settling at Laish (later known as Dan), near Mount Hermon.
Ekron (Philistine: 𐤏𐤒𐤓𐤍 *ʿAqārān, [1] Hebrew: עֶקְרוֹן, romanized: ʿEqrōn, Arabic: عقرون), in the Hellenistic period known as Accaron (Ancient Greek: Ακκαρων, romanized: Akkarōn) [2] [3] was at first a Canaanite, and later more famously a Philistine city, one of the five cities of the Philistine Pentapolis, located in present-day Israel.
This is the unsourced 2004 text, which does make sense, but offers very little other than details about the stele. It was posted here: "The Tel Dan Stele ... was found not in situ, but reused in ancient times in the city wall near the entrance of the outer gate of the city of Dan.