The Tel Dan Stele
Ninth-century BC neighbours of Israel knew Judah as "the House of David" — a dynasty named after a founder, a century and a half after David's traditional date.
Lave'i 'i tu'a mei he Tohi TapuTohi tongi makac. 840 BC
A victory stele set up by an Aramean king — most likely Hazael of Damascus — boasting of killing kings of Israel and of the House of David. Broken up and reused as building stone, which is why it survived. Line 9 carries the phrase bytdwd, "House of David": the earliest known reference to David's dynasty outside the Bible.
…[I killed Jeho]ram son of [Ahab] king of Israel, and I killed [Ahaz]iahu son of [Jehoram kin]g of the House of David.
- Na'e 'ilo'i
- Tel Dan, northern Israel, 1993 — Gila Cook, in Avraham Biran's excavation (further fragments 1994)
- 'Oku tauhi 'i
- Israel Museum, Jerusalem
- Lea
- Old Aramaic
Hono lahi 'o 'ene fakamo'oni
The reading "House of David" is accepted by the large majority of epigraphers. A small minority has proposed alternatives; the objection has not carried the field.
Founga hono ngāue'aki 'e he kau hisitōlia
Widely treated in secular scholarship as decisive against the once-common view that David was purely legendary. It establishes the dynasty, not the biblical portrait of David's reign.
'I he Folofola
Fekau'aki mo
Ngaahi ma'u'anga fakamatala
- Biran & Naveh, "The Tel Dan Inscription: A New Fragment", Israel Exploration Journal 45 (1995)
- Biblical Archaeology Society, "The Tel Dan Inscription"
'Oku 'i he lea faka-Pilitānia 'a e ngaahi fakamatala ko 'eni he taimi ni. 'E muimui mai 'a e liliu.