INV. 005 · Inscription
Tel Dan Stele
Fragments of an Aramaic royal inscription that appear to mention the House of David. The reading supports a dynasty bearing that name, not the biblical kingdom's extent.
Editorial note: Image metadata was checked against the Wikimedia Commons record; the object's historical identification should also be verified in the institution's catalogue.
- Type
- Inscription
- Nature
- Ancient objectThe object itself dates from the period indicated.
- Date of the object
- 900–800 BCEThe chapter dates the Aramaic inscription to the ninth century BCE.
- Institution
- Museu de Israel, Jerusalém
- Provenance
- Tel Dan, northern Israel.
- Image
- Oren Rozen
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0 ↗
- Retrieved
- Commons API, 2026-10-15
Sourced historical context
A Tel Dan inscription shows that Israel and Judah existed as kingdoms by the ninth century BCE: it names Israel's king and another ruler belonging to the House of David. No evidence, however, establishes that David and Solomon once united both kingdoms as the Bible says. The ninth-century Dan inscription and later Mesopotamian records confirm both kingdoms. Whether Israel and Judah ever formed one united kingdom remains unresolved. Some scholars argue they were separate from the outset, with the northern state arising during the ninth century and Judah developing fully only after that state's late eighth-century destruction.