Tel Dan
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Tel Dan ("Mound of Dan" תל דן in Hebrew), also known as Tel el-Qadi (Mound of the Judge in Arabic, literal translation of the Hebrew name Tel Dan, "Dan" being "judge", or "judging one"), is an archaeological site in Israel in the upper Galilee next to the Golan Heights. The site is quite securely identified with the Biblical city of Dan, the northernmost city in the Kingdom of Israel, which the Book of Judges states was known as Laish prior to its conquest by the Tribe of Dan. Due to its location close to the border with Lebanon and at the far north of the territory which fell under the British Mandate of Palestine, Tel Dan has had a long and often bitterly contested modern history, most recently during the 1967 Six-Day War.
Finds at the site date back to the Neolithic era c4500 BCE; from the remains found, which include 0.8m wide walls, and pottery shards, it appears that the site was occupied in Neolithic times for several centuries before being abandoned for up to about 1000 years.
Within the remains of the city wall, close to the entrance of the outer gate, was found a fragment which seemingly was originally from a stele. This basalt fragment, the Tel Dan Stele, contains an Aramaic inscription, referring to one of the Aramaean kings of Damascus; most scholars believe that the king it refers to is Hazael (c 840BCE), though a minority argue that it instead refers to Ben-Hadad (c 802 BCE). Very little of the inscription remains, but the text appears to contain the letters 'ביתד וד' (BETD WD; the "WD" is at a slight angle, with a sizable gap from the "BETD"), which most archaeologists agree refers to House of David (Beth David in Hebrew; Hebrew script from the era is vowel-less), which would make the inscription the first time that the name David has been found in any archaeological site dating before 500BC.
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. Unexpectedly, a hitherto unknown earlier gateway to the city was uncovered. The entrance complex led to a courtyard paved with stone where there stood a low stone platform. This has been identified as the podium for the golden calf which the Bible states was placed there by Jeroboam.
