The Tel Dan Stele, a 9th century BCE stone monument fragment, containing the earliest mention of the royal House of David outside of the Hebrew Bible, will be on view at the Jewish Museum for a limited time. On loan from The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, the stone slab's inscription lends archaeological evidence to the existence of the Biblical King David as a historical figure, in parallel with the narrative of the Bible.
Discovered in northern Israel in the early 1990s, the Stele-an archaeological term for an upright monument used in ancient cultures to commemorate a person, place, or event-was once part of an inscription on a basalt victory Stele commemorating the military victories of King Hazael of Aram (a region in present-day Syria) between c. 842 and 806 BCE. Although Hazael’s name is not cited in the inscription, scholars believe him to be its author.
In the inscription, the Aramaic king boasts that he defeated King Jehoram of Israel and King Ahaziahu of Judah, a reference to Israel’s two kingdoms at the time, Israel in the north and Judah in the south, the latter also commonly known as the House of David. The engraved inscription’s mention of a “king of the House of David,” is a direct reference to ancient Israel’s monarch and his royal dynasty, corresponding with the Bible’s historical narrative.
The first fragment comprising the Stele was unearthed in July 1993, during excavations of an ancient stone wall in Tel Dan, Israel. The following year, two additional fragments were discovered at the same site and linked to the original fragment.
Building on the archaeological evidence of King David’s reign in Israel, the Tel Dan Stele will be exhibited alongside five late 8th century BCE handles stamped with royal seals, once part of large clay storage jars, from the Jewish Museum’s archaeology collection. The seals on these fragments are inscribed “[Belonging] to the king” in ancient Hebrew, attesting to the existence of kingship in ancient Israel. The jars were likely part of a royal provisioning system. Three of the jar handles cite the city of Hebron in their royal seal impressions, and two mention the city of Socoh in the ancient kingdom of Judah.
The Tel Dan Stele is presented within Engaging with History: Works from the Collection, a selection of rarely exhibited objects from the Museum’s holdings of over 30,000 works including new acquisitions by Carrie Mae Weens, William Kentridge, and others on view for the first time in dialogue with Museum treasures reflecting millenia of global Jewish culture.
