The Tel Dan Stone

Tel Dan is a biblical site in Northern Israel that has been excavated by the israeli archaeologist Avraham Biran. The site has been identified with the biblical city of Dan, which was the northernmost city of ancient Israel. Large sections of middle bronze and iron age cities have been uncovered.

In 1993, a reused building stone was discovered that contained ancient writing.lt was a triumphal inscription in Aramaic, chiselled into the black basalt stone. The king that the stone commemorates was probably Hazael, King of Damascus. It records, from the Aramean perspective, the turbulent politics that engulfed Israel during the 9th Century BC.

In the inscription, written about 835 BC, Hazael claimed to have killed both the King of Israel and his ally, the King of the House of David. This is the first use of the name David from sources outside the Bible. The inscription was carved about 100 years after David's time and, significantly, it identifies a line of kings descended from David.

The Bible record is in II Kings. It and the inscription agree that Jehoram of Israel and Ahaziah King of Judah died about the same time during a period when Hazael threatened Israel. The most important confirmation of the Bible record, however, is that David was known to be the dynastic founder of the Royal House of Judah. This confirmation was carved in the basalt by an independent observer just a few generations after David lived.

Source: Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman,Davld and Solomon, In Search of the Bible's Sacred Kings and The Roots of the Western Tradition. Free Press. NY, 2006. 342 pp