Back to the Library
Before the Church · c. 840 BC
The Tel Dan Stele
An Aramean king, probably Hazael
Read elsewhere
What it is
Three broken fragments of a basalt victory monument found reused in a wall at Tel Dan in 1993 and 1994. The surviving lines claim the killing of a king of Israel and a king of the house of David.
Why it lasted
The first mention of David outside the Bible, and the end of the argument that the dynasty was a later invention. A century of maximalist and minimalist debate turned on eleven letters.
Scripture it works from
Where to read it
Public domain and free to read in full, though not held here. The archives below have it.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
Read next