Dan (), and older name Laish, is an ancient city mentioned in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Kingdom of Israel, and belonging to the tribe of Dan, its namesake. It was later the site of a royal sanctuary built by

Jeroboam Jeroboam I (; Hebrew language, Hebrew: ''Yārŏḇʿām''; ), frequently cited Jeroboam son of Nebat, was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the first king of the northern Kingdom of Israel (Samaria), Kingdom of Israel following a Jeroboam's Revol ...

. The city is identified with a tell located in Upper Galilee, northern

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

, known as Tel Dan (; "Mound of Dan") in

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

and Tell el-Qadi ("Mound of the Judge") in

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

, a popular translation of the ancient Hebrew name. The site was occupied continuously from the Early Bronze Age through the Iron Age II, the time of the Kingdom of Israel. While evidence suggests a period of abandonment during the Persian era, it was later rebuilt as a

Hellenistic In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...

city with a notable shrine.

Identification and names

The

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' tribe of Dan the site was known as Laish with variant spellings within the Books of

Joshua Joshua ( ), also known as Yehoshua ( ''Yəhōšuaʿ'', Tiberian Hebrew, Tiberian: ''Yŏhōšuaʿ,'' Literal translation, lit. 'Yahweh is salvation'), Jehoshua, or Josue, functioned as Moses' assistant in the books of Book of Exodus, Exodus and ...

, Judges and Isaiah. In it is called Leshem, which means "jewel". has the alternative name ''Laishah'' "Lioness" in a number of translations. Rabbinic works, and writers like Philostorgius, Theodoret, Benjamin of Tudela and Samuel ben Samson, all incorrectly identified Dan or Laish, with Banias (Paneas).Saulcy, 1854, pp
537
538 Eusebius of Caesarea more accurately places Dan/Laish in the vicinity of Paneas at the fourth mile on the route to Tyre. The Arab name of the archaeological site, Tell el-Qadi, meaning "the tell of the judge," plays on the distinction between Arabic "din" and Hebrew "dan," offering a popular translation of the ancient Hebrew name. 19th century Swiss traveler Johann Ludwig Burckhardt identified the source of the Jordan River having the name "Dhan" () in his travelogue published posthumously in 1822. The American naval officer William F. Lynch was the first to identify ''Tell el-Qadi'' as the site of the ancient city of Dan in 1849. Three years later, Edward Robinson made the same identification,, p
392
/ref> and this identification is now securely accepted. ''Tel Dan'' is the modern Israeli name for the site, based on the original Biblical name.

Geography

Dan is situated in the area known as the Galilee Panhandle, which is a part of Upper Galilee. To the west is the southern part of Mount Lebanon; to the east and north are the Hermon mountains. Melting snow from the Hermon mountains provides the majority of the water of the Jordan River, and passes through Dan, making the immediate area highly fertile. The lush vegetation that results makes the area around Dan seem somewhat out of place in the otherwise arid region around it. Due to its location close to the border with

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

and

Lebanon Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. Situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula, it is bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south ...

at the far north of the territory which fell under the British Mandate of Palestine, the site has a long and often bitterly contested modern history, most recently during the 1967

Six-Day War The Six-Day War, also known as the June War, 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states, primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan from 5 to 10June ...

Biblical narrative

Laish/Leshem

According to the

Book of Judges The Book of Judges is the seventh book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. In the narrative of the Hebrew Bible, it covers the time between the conquest described in the Book of Joshua and the establishment of a kingdom in the ...

, prior to the Tribe of Dan occupying the land, the town was known as Laish (), meaning lion, or rather lioness.abarim-publications
Laish "Laish"
an

at Abarim Publications. Re-accessed 20 July 2022. , although telling the same story as Judges 18, names the city as Leshem, which makes the researchers consider it as being the same place. Laish was allied with the

Sidonians Sidon ( ) or better known as Saida ( ; ) is the third-largest city in Lebanon. It is located on the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean coast in the South Governorate, Lebanon, South Governorate, of which it is the capital. Tyre, Lebanon, Tyre, t ...

Phoenicians Phoenicians were an ancient Semitic group of people who lived in the Phoenician city-states along a coastal strip in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily modern Lebanon and the Syrian coast. They developed a maritime civi ...

from the city of

Sidon Sidon ( ) or better known as Saida ( ; ) is the third-largest city in Lebanon. It is located on the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean coast in the South Governorate, Lebanon, South Governorate, of which it is the capital. Tyre, Lebanon, Tyre, t ...

. This might indicate they were also Phoenicians, who may or may not have been

Canaan CanaanThe current scholarly edition of the Septuagint, Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus Testamentum graece iuxta LXX interprets. 2. ed. / recogn. et emendavit Robert Hanhart. Stuttgart : D ...

ite. The alliance offered little practical benefit due to the remoteness of Laish from Sidon, and the intervening Lebanon mountains. The town was also isolated from the

Assyria Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , ''māt Aššur'') was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization that existed as a city-state from the 21st century BC to the 14th century BC and eventually expanded into an empire from the 14th century BC t ...

ns and Aram by the Hermon mountains; the

Septuagint The Septuagint ( ), sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy (), and abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Biblical Hebrew. The full Greek ...

mentions that the town was unable to have an alliance with the Aramaeans. The

Masoretic Text The Masoretic Text (MT or 𝕸; ) is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible (''Tanakh'') in Rabbinic Judaism. The Masoretic Text defines the Jewish canon and its precise letter-text, with its vocaliz ...

does not mention the Aramaeans, but instead states that the town had no relationship with ''any man'' – textual scholars believe that this is a scribal error, with ''adham'' (''man'') being a mistake for ''Aram''.

Israelite city of Dan

According to the Book of Judges story of Micah's Idol, the Tribe of Dan did not at that point have any territory to their name (), and so, after scouting out the land, eventually decided to attack Laish, as the land around it was fertile, and the town was demilitarised. The Bible describes the Tribe of Dan with 600 men brutally defeating the people of Laish and burning it to the ground, and then building their city in the same spot. The narrative states that Laish became known as Dan after the tribe. They then erected a sanctuary that housed the idol stolen from Micah, which was served by a priest who was Moses' grandson. The sanctuary later received one of the two golden calves of

, and remained in use until the "time of captivity of the land" and the time that the "house of God" ceased to be in Shiloh. Scholars think that the former refers to the Assyrian conquest of the Kingdom of Israel by Tiglath-Pileser III in 733/732, and that the latter refers to the time of Hezekiah's religious reform; an alternative possibility, however, supported by a minority of scholars, is that "time of captivity of the land" is a scribal error and should read "time of captivity of the Ark", referring to the battle of Eben-Ezer, and the Philistine capture of the Ark, and that the ceasing of the "house of God" being in Shiloh refers to this also.

Golden calf worship

According to and ,

erected two golden calves as gods in Bethel and Dan. Textual scholars believe that this is where the Elohist story of

Aaron According to the Old Testament of the Bible, Aaron ( or ) was an Israelite prophet, a high priest, and the elder brother of Moses. Information about Aaron comes exclusively from religious texts, such as the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament ...

's golden calf originates due to opposition in some sections of Israelite society, including the Elohists, to the seeming idol-worship of Jeroboam. However, some Biblical scholars believe that

was trying to outdo the

Temple in Jerusalem The Temple in Jerusalem, or alternatively the Holy Temple (; , ), refers to the two religious structures that served as the central places of worship for Israelites and Jews on the modern-day Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem. Accord ...

, by creating a seat for God that spanned the entire Kingdom of Israel rather than just the small space above the

Ark of the Covenant The Ark of the Covenant, also known as the Ark of the Testimony or the Ark of God, was a religious storage chest and relic held to be the most sacred object by the Israelites. Religious tradition describes it as a wooden storage chest decorat ...

in Jerusalem. The

Holy of Holies The Holy of Holies ( or ''Kodesh HaKodashim''; also ''hadDəḇīr'', 'the Sanctuary') is a term in the Hebrew Bible that refers to the inner sanctuary of the Tabernacle, where the Shekhinah (God in Judaism, God's presence) appeared. According ...

in the Jerusalem Temple of Judah was represented by a cherub on either side, so Jeroboam might have been using the calves to represent the sides of his sanctuary, implying his whole kingdom was equal in holiness to the Ark.

Archaeology

According to the archaeological excavations at the site, the town was originally occupied in the Late Neolithic period (c. 4500 BCE), and at some time in the fourth millennium BCE it was abandoned for almost 1,000 years.

Early Bronze

Laish was a fortified settlement during the Early Bronze Age.

Middle Bronze

The Egyptians cursed Laish in execration texts written during the Middle Kingdom. It has been speculated that the repetition in such texts of formulas from older ones dating to the Old Kingdom (27th–22nd century BCE) seem to indicate that they reflected the historical reality of the Early Bronze Age, rather than that of the Middle Bronze Age. The excavators of Tel Dan uncovered a city gate made of mud bricks on top of megalithic basalt blocks called orthostats, estimated to have been built during the Middle Bronze Age around 1750 BCE.Frances, Rosa
The three-arched middle Bronze Age gate at Tel Dan - A structural investigation of an extraordinary archaeological site
retrieved 9 April 2020. As of 2009, its three constituent 'true' arches were the oldest complete and free-standing monumental arches made of mud-brick known in the world. Its popular name is Abraham's Gate, due to the biblical story that Abraham travelled to Dan to rescue his nephew Lot (:). The gate was restored in the late 2000s and has become a popular tourist attraction. Hazor was the regional power during the Middle Bronze II, subordinate to Qatna to the north and with trade routes to Mari in the Middle Euphrates.

Late Bronze

Egyptian period

In the 15th century BCE, Tuthmosis III conquered Dan (called ''Laysha'') along others (Egyptian hieroglyphs did not distinguish between L and R).

Iron Age I

During the Iron Age I, Egyptian withdrawal from Canaan led Laish (Dan) to become an independent entity allied with the Sidonians. It remained independent until the 10th century BCE, when it was annexed by the Northern Kingdom of Israel or one of the Aramean kingdoms. In Judges 18 it is told that there was no king in the land. The Tribe of Dan were seeking an inheritance for themselves, so they sent five of their clan leaders from Zorah and Eshtaol to spy out the land of Laish. The Danites then conquered Laish with an army of 600 men burning the city to the ground and rebuilding it as Dan.

Iron Age II

In Iron II, the Northern Kingdom of Israel seem to have gained control over Dan. According to William G. Dever, the city's population was approximately 3,000 people during the 9th and 8th centuries BCE.

Israelite city wall and gate

The Israelite gate was built at a different location than the Canaanite gate. In 1992, in order to tidy up the site for presentation to visitors, a heap of debris was removed which dated from the time of the Assyrian destruction of the city by Tiglath-Pileser III in 733/2 BCE. A hitherto unknown earlier gateway to the city was uncovered. The entrance complex led to a courtyard paved with stone with a low stone platform. In the 9th century BCE, the podium was enlarged, and major fortifications were built, a city wall with buttresses and a complex gate. The podium was enlarged further in the 8th century BCE by Jeroboam II, then destroyed by Tiglath-Pileser III.

Seat of king or judge

At the Israelite gate there is a raised square platform reached by two steps. Decorated stone sockets in the corners may have been created to hold canopy poles. It may have been the base of the king's seat, where he would sit in judgment.

Tel Dan stele

Within the remains of the city wall, close to the entrance of the outer gate, parts of the stele were found. The basalt stone bears an

Aramaic Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written a ...

inscription referring to one of the kings of

Damascus Damascus ( , ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in the Levant region by population, largest city of Syria. It is the oldest capital in the world and, according to some, the fourth Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. Kno ...

; the excavators of the site believe that the king it refers to is Hazael (c 840 BCE), though a minority argue that it instead refers to Ben-Hadad (c 802 BCE). A small part of the inscription remains, with text containing the letters 'ביתדוד' (''BYTDWD''), which most archaeologists agree refers to "House of David" (''Beth David'' in

.) In the line directly above, the text reads 'MLK YSR'L', i.e. "King of Israel". Hebrew script from the era is

vowel A vowel is a speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract, forming the nucleus of a syllable. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness a ...

-less, which would make the inscription the first time that the name ''

David David (; , "beloved one") was a king of ancient Israel and Judah and the third king of the United Monarchy, according to the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament. The Tel Dan stele, an Aramaic-inscribed stone erected by a king of Aram-Dam ...

'' has been found at an archaeological site dating before 500 BCE. Dan suffered in the era of expansion by the Aramaeans, due to being the closest city to them in the kingdom of Israel. The several incursions indicated by the Book of Kings suggest that Dan changed hands at least four times between the Kingdom of Israel and Aramaeans, around the time that Israel was ruled by Ahab and the Aramaeans by Ben Hadad I, and their successors. Around this time, the Tel Dan stele was created by the Aramaeans, during one of the periods of their control of Dan. When the Assyrian empire expanded to the south, the kingdom of Israel initially became a vassal state, but after rebelling, the Assyrians invaded and the town fell to Tiglath-Pileser III in 733/732 BCE.

Cultic area, altar

Excavations at the cultic area of Dan have revealed a religious compound with a large four-horned central altar and presenting a diverse amount of cult paraphernalia. These findings seem to be in line with the biblical account which portrays Dan as a major cultic center of the Kingdom of Israel from the reign of Jeroboam ().

Later periods

During the Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman periods, remains indicate that cultic activities continued around the podium (also known as "the High Place").

Tel Dan Nature Reserve

The Tel Dan Nature Reserve was first declared on 39 hectares surrounding the Tel in 1974. Nine hectares were added to the reserve in 1989. The Dan River is one of the three water sources of the Jordan River which meet in the northern part of the Hula Valley. Notable points of interest include Paradise Springs, the Abraham or Canaanite Gate and the Israelite Gate.Israel Nature and Parks Authority
Tel Dan Nature Reserve
accessed 12 October 2020

References

Bibliography

* Re-accessed 20 July 2022. *

External links

Tel Dan Excavations
– official Nelson Glueck School of Biblical Archaeology website
Israel Nature & Natural Parks Protection Authority Site
* 1961 Israeli map of Tel Dan and surrounding area

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dan (Ancient City) Megalithic monuments in the Middle East Nature reserves in Israel Prehistoric sites in Israel Ancient sites in Israel Former populated places in West Asia Land of Israel Bronze Age sites in Israel Iron Age sites in Israel Canaanite cities Protected areas of Northern District (Israel) Buildings and structures in Northern District (Israel) Tells (archaeology) Historic Jewish communities Populated places established in the 5th millennium BC Populated places disestablished in the 4th millennium BC Populated places disestablished in the 8th century BC Hula Valley Tribe of Dan World Heritage Tentative List Golden calf Late Neolithic