Tel
Dan Stele. House of David Inscription
The Tel Dan Stele is a black basalt stele
erected by an Aramaean king in northernmost Israel
containing an Aramaic inscription to commemorate
his victory over the ancient Hebrews. The inscription
has been dated to the 9th or 8th centuries BCE.
Only portions of the inscription remain, but it has generated much excitement
among those interested in Biblical archaeology. Attention is concentrated on
the phrase which is identical to the Hebrew for "house
of David."
A line by line translation by André Lemaire
is as follows (with text that cannot be read
due to being missing from the stele, or too
damaged by erosion, represented by "[.....]"):
1'. [.....................].......[...................................]
and cut [.........................]
2'. [.........] my father went up [....................f]ighting at/against
Ab[....]
3'. And my father lay down; he went to his [fathers]. And the king of I[s-]
4'. rael penetrated into my father's land[. And] Hadad made me—myself—king.
5'. And Hadad went in front of me[, and] I departed from ...........[.................]
6'. of my kings. And I killed two [power]ful kin[gs], who harnessed two thou[sand
cha-]
7'. riots and two thousand horsemen. I killed Joram son of
Ahab
8'. king of Israel, and I killed [Achaz]yahu son of [Joram kin]g
9'. of the House of David. And I set [.......................................................]
10'. their land ...[.......................................................................................]
11'. other ...[.........................................................................
and Jehu ru-]
12'. led over Is[rael...................................................................................]
13'. siege upon [............................................................]
Joram Son of Ahab also appears in the inscription
2 Kings 8:16 - "And in the fifth year of Joram the son of Ahab King of Israel"
This is the first time that the name "David" has
been recognized at any archaeological site.
Like the Mesha
stele, the Tel Dan Stele seems typical
of a memorial intended as a sort of military
propaganda, which boasts of Hazael's or his
son's victories. (Some epigraphers think that
the phrase "house of David" also
appears in a partly broken line in the Mesha
stele.) |
The
City of Gath and Goliath
Tell es-Safi/Gath is a large site in Central Israel situated about half way
between Jerusalem and Ashkelon. It is identified as biblical “Gath of
the Philistines,” one of the major cities of the Philistines, the well-known
arch-enemies of the Israelites in the biblical text.
The site, which has rich finds from many periods, has revealed impressive evidence
of the various stages of the Philistine culture during the Iron Age (c. 1200 – 586
BCE), parallel, more or less, to the time of the Israelite kingdoms. Among
other finds, impressive evidence of the siege and subsequent destruction of
the site by Hazael, King of Aram Damascus c. 800 BCE (as mentioned in 2 Kings
12:18)
During the excavation season of 2005, in a well-defined context dating to the
10th or early 9th century BCE, a sherd with a short inscription was found.
The inscription is written in archaic “Proto-Canaanite” letters,
but has in it two non-Semitic names: Alwt and Wlt.
This inscription is of extreme
importance for several reasons:
1) It is the earliest Philistine inscription
known to date. In fact, it is one of the few
Proto-Canaanite inscriptions that have been
found in a well-dated and secure archaeological
context.
2) While the letters are Semitic, the names
appearing are Indo-European (the linguistic
family of ancient Greek and related languages).
It is assumed by most scholars that the Philistines
migrated to the Levant from somewhere in the
Aegean region. On their arrival, they brought
with them assorted Aegean cultural facets.
With time, their culture became more and more
effected by the local cultures, slowly incorporating
local elements. This inscription, with Semitic
script and Indo-European names is among the
earliest hard evidence showing this process.
3) Most significantly, the names that appear
in this inscription are strikingly similar
to a well known Philistine name – Goliath.
The name Goliath is clearly of non-Semitic
origin, and most scholars believe that it is
etymologically related to various Indo-European
names, such as the Lydian name Alyattes. The
two names that appear in the new inscription
from Tell es-Safi/Gath are remarkably similar
to the etymological parallels of Goliath, so
much so that it appears to be more than just
coincidence. It can be suggested that this
indicates that in 10th-9th century Philistine
Gath, names quite similar, and possibly identical,
to Goliath were in use. This chronological
context from which the inscription was found
is only about 100 years after the time of David
according to the standard biblical chronology.
Thus, this appears to provide evidence that
the biblical story of Goliath is in fact based
on a clear cultural realia from, more or less,
the time which is depicted in the biblical
text. Thus, recent attempts to claim that Goliath
can only be understood in the context of later
phases of the Iron Age are unwarranted.
4) Finally, in the Egyptian story of Wenamun
(dating to the 11th or 10th centuries BCE),
there is a description of the Egyptian priest
Wenamun’s travels from Egypt to Lebanon
to purchase cedar for his temple in Egypt.
During his travels he reached Dor, on the northern
coast of present day Israel. At the site he
mentions various figures, including a person
with an apparent Philistine/Sea Peoples name:
Weret or Welet. Once again, this name is very
similar to the names appearing in the new inscription
from Tell es-Safi/Gath.
In summary, the new inscription from Tell
es-Safi/Gath is of quite astounding importance.
Not only is it the earliest Philistine inscription
known to date, and one of the few well-dated
Proto-Canaanite inscriptions, it provides unequivocal
evidence of the transformation of the Philistines
from an Aegean to a Semitic culture. Most importantly,
it provides the first evidence from Philistia
(the land of the biblical Philistines, the
southern coastal plain of Modern Israel) of
names similar to Goliath, paralleling the mention
of this name in the biblical text (and a similar
name in a more or less contemporary Egyptian
text). |
