Talk:Dan (ancient city)

Map coords
I'll try to verify that this is it: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=Qiryat+Shemona,+Israel&ie=UTF8&om=1&z=16&ll=33.230898,35.621581&spn=0.008418,0.021629&t=h Vonfraginoff 13:37, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Laish = Leshem?
I'm wondering if the Laish is the same city as Leshem, mentioned in Joshua 19.47. Since they have the same root, it would make sense, but I don't see it mentioned in the article. Aristophanes68 (talk) 14:40, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I firmly believe they are not, the Tel Dan cite is Leshem, but Laish is defined as being far away from the Sidonian homeland. I think it is the homeland of the Denyen, near where Antioch is located.--JaredMithrandir (talk) 22:14, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

It is almost centainly the same city, the story of Judges is a probably late elaboration of that verse in Jozua, one clue for this is the place at the end of Judges (while it is supposed to have happened immediately after the conquest). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Codiv (talk • contribs) 12:29, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

Merge
I propose merging this page with Tel Dan. --Sreifa (talk) 07:35, 7 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Support. It is a good fit, although I would like to see a new title such as "Dan (ancient city)" as the article should cover more than just the biblical period. Tel Dan is something I recognize, but mainly in the context of the excavations there, and many people would not search for that term. Regardless, the issue of a title can wait until after a merge, which I support. &bull; Astynax talk 18:36, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Incorrect information

 * "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"
 * In fact, there is no such gap in the text whatsoever, as can be clearly seen in the actual image of the Tel Dan Stele.
 * http://www.english.imjnet.org.il/Media/Uploads/Stele-House-of-David.jpg
 * http://www.houseofdavid.ca/4DAVIDBEITbw8.gif
 * The writing BYTDYD unambiguously refers to the 'House of David', bolstered by the fact that in the line directly above, it is written MLK-YSR'L, i.e. Melekh Israel, King of Israel.
 * http://www.einzigartiges-israel.de/ei2v0i/bild/222-tel-dan-stele.jpg
 * Jacob Davidson —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.68.95.65 (talk) 18:22, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Missing facts
We received the following via OTRS ticket. The person writing in isn't comfortable making the edits themselves, so I told them I would post the information here.
 * Tel Dan is at the Israeli beginning of the mountains that separate Israel and Syria. Israel took much of the land northeast of Tel Dan in the 1967 war.


 * Because of the height of the highest mountain separating the two countries, a lot of snow and rain falls there at different times during each year. Much of the water heading to the southwest of the mountains comes up in springs that surround the area close to Tel Dan. Some of that water actually surfaces very close to Tel Dan, and was one of the main reasons that humans began settling their many thousan of years ago. Those mountain-spring waters at Tel Dan are the highest elevation sources of the water that becomes the Jordan River.

They indicated that the Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem could help with verifying this information, though verification may be available via other sources as well. Thanks! ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WikiProject Japan ! 20:02, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Identification as Dan
Ok, "Dan was first identified by Edward Robinson in 1838, and has been securely identified with the archaeological site of Tel Dan" seems to at least deserve a citation or two, since apparently the article for the city of Dan is going to be merged with this one. Did they find some tablet saying "Welcome to Dan" at the tell?Ploversegg (talk) 22:22, 18 September 2010 (UTC)


 * It isn't true. The correct year is 1852 and I'll give a citation. Zerotalk 14:14, 18 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I've seen the 1838 claim in good sources too. But in his 1838 book, Robinson just describes standing in a high place (Benit, not far north of Safed) where he could see a vast panorama and mused that "the place of the ancient Dan was before us" (Travels, book II, p. 439). He doesn't mention the Tel that I can see. Zerotalk 14:56, 18 July 2015 (UTC)
 * The 1852 book has pages of description that should be summarised here. Zerotalk 15:18, 18 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Now I find that the identification also appears in the 1850 book of W. F. Lynch (Narrative of the United States Expedition to the River Jordan and the Dead Sea, p. 472). Zerotalk 15:34, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

Copyright problem removed
Prior content in this article duplicated one or more previously published sources. The material was copied from: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:FVjjcFirSpIJ:www.eretz.com/NEW/stayputuppergal.shtml+nahal+dan&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk%20Eretz%20Magazine and http://teldan.wordpress.com/house-of-david-inscription/. Infringing material has been rewritten or removed and must not be restored, unless it is duly released under a compatible license. (For more information, please see "using copyrighted works from others" if you are not the copyright holder of this material, or "donating copyrighted materials" if you are.) For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or published material; such additions will be deleted. Contributors may use copyrighted publications as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences or phrases. Accordingly, the material may be rewritten, but only if it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously, and persistent violators will be blocked from editing. While we appreciate contributions, we must require all contributors to understand and comply with these policies. Thank you. Mkativerata (talk) 18:48, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Irrelevant ?
Padres Hana (talk) 17:51, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, irrelevant. A general map dating from 1946 says nothing about an archaeological site inhabited up to Roman times, especially when it depicts the modern kibbutz, not the ancient city. Poliocretes (talk)

the name "Tel Dan"
I'm looking for the origin of the name "Tel Dan". The earliest mention I can find is in an Israeli government document of 1952. I suspect it is one of the new names invented by the Israeli Geographical Names Committee (or a body called something like that) to replace Arabic names, but I'm happy to be corrected. I can tell you for sure that not even the most detailed British maps called it anything other than (some spelling of) Tel el-Qadi. In fact the 1:100000 topographical map issued by the Survey of Israel in 1956 (made by overprinting the 1947 British map) still calls it only "Tall al Qadi". Zerotalk 14:34, 18 July 2015 (UTC)


 * The 1:20,000 Hebrew series of maps made by the Survey of Israel called it Tel el-Qadi in the 1956 edition and Tel Dan in the 1961 edition. Zerotalk 11:40, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 1 one external link on Dan (ancient city). Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive //web.archive.org/web/20091007095221/http://parks.org.il/sigalit/muchrazim.pdf to http://parks.org.il/sigalit/muchrazim.pdf

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 15:25, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Dan (ancient city). Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110519195012/http://www.bib-arch.org/e-features/canaanites-and-philistines.asp to http://www.bib-arch.org/e-features/canaanites-and-philistines.asp

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 18:19, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Dan (ancient city). Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110719053249/http://www.parks.org.il/BuildaGate5/general2/data_card.php?Cat=~25970478950~Card12~&ru=&SiteName=parks&Clt=&Bur=885431281 to http://www.parks.org.il/BuildaGate5/general2/data_card.php?Cat=~25970478950~Card12~&ru=&SiteName=parks&Clt=&Bur=885431281

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 11:53, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

how long was the temple in Dan active?
As mentioned in the book of Judges the city of Dan housed a temple founded there after the conquest of Laïsh and containing a silver statue stolen from Milcah and served by a priest that was a grandson of Moses (which if reliable would put it to the very early days after the conquest, but is is probably not historical). In the early days of the kingdom of Israël Jerobeam also put one of the two golden calves here (the other one in the temple in Bethel), as symbolic protectors of his kingdom. With Dan being at the border of the kingdom of Damascus, the city changed hands several times, and certainly was taken by Hazael as proven by the Tell Dan stele, but probably also in the days of Baasha (I Kings 15:20). Such silver and gold cult object would be among the prime spoils of war, surely to be carried of to Damascus, so I wonder if there really is any real proof of these objects still being there and the temple being in use after this point?

For instance, the prophet Amos, contemporary with Jerobeam II, does mention Bethel a lot, and also mentions Gilgal, and Bersheba, but never Dan. The last remark on the gold calves of Bethel and Dan, as mentioned in II Kings 10:29 but this is probably a standard formula for the sins of Jerobeam (and written much later) and even when factual is about the 9th century and there are no later reference (let alone archeological facts). Does anybody know of any evidence for the last moment in time this temple was still in service? Have the many excavations of Tel-Dan given anything on this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Codiv (talk • contribs) 16:58, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

Iron Age city: nothing useful apart from stele
The text started off modestly, and it got far worse with time. As of now, it is worse than useless, it is confusing to the max. Better of without it, honestly.

added a piece of information about the stele in 2004, without a source, which was probably the procedure 18 years ago. This has been hacked to pieces, mixed and twisted until nothing makes sense anymore, and then given at the tail end a "source" which doesn't explain anything (Negev pp. 131-32), on top of being in itself too old and too brief. There is no other way but rewriting from scratch. Anyone?

We need:
 * city walls, fortifications
 * city gate complex, expanded over time, connected to with successive walls, each gate with guardrooms and paved areas in between
 * paved marketplace in front of outer gate, with a platform holding standing stones (masebot)
 * seat for judge/king with canopy bases
 * small Aegean-style temple or building with cultic purpose next to industrial area
 * the main cultic area of the "golden calf", with well, platform/altar, side rooms, etc.

These are the main elements visible to visitors, but there might be more important excavation areas mentioned in literature.

Now we have a heap of disorganised terms, where no one can tell what each "podium" or "platform" relates to (either masebot podium, judge seat platform, paved areas between gates, podium/altar "of the golden calf"... What?)

This is the unsourced 2004 text, which does make sense, but offers very little other than details about the stele. It was posted here:
 * "The Tel Dan Stele ... was found not in situ, but reused in ancient times in the city wall near the entrance of the outer gate of the city of Dan. 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 legacy of his campaign against northern Israel that is described in 2 Kings 15:29. Unexpectedly, a hitherto unknown earlier gateway to the city was uncovered. The entrance complex led to a courtyard paved with stone where stood a low stone platform. The fragments may have formed part of a memorial stele which was placed in the wall sometime before the Assyrian destruction." Arminden (talk) 23:33, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Laisha - Laish: "OR"?
I found a section called "Laish" and stating that
 * "According to the Book of Judges, prior to the Tribe of Dan occupying the land, the town was known as Laysha ( and, לישה) or Laish (Joshua 19:47, Judges 18) – which root the Hebrew poets applied also to the lion (, and ). "

Most of it seems false according to the cited source, Abarim Publications: Laishah. The entire paragraph looked like OR (original research) in the guise of source citation. I have rewritten it based on the source, Abarim Publ.: "Laishah" and "Laish", and the Bible text as indicated in the linked translation. If there are reasons to contest this, please do it here. Cheers, Arminden (talk) 06:01, 20 July 2022 (UTC)
 * The source states that "Laisha[h]" is most likely a completely different place, close to Jerusalem. That makes the quotes from Isaiah not suitable, as not referring to the city discussed here.
 * The text from Job and Proverbs is not cited or commented anywhere in the given source.
 * The links lead to a bilingual Hebrew-English text of Judges (it apparently has a rather literal translation), where the name is always rendered as Laish, never as Laisha[h]: the editor probably mistook suffix for part of the name and took the freedom to diverge from his chosen source, the linked text.
 * The cited source, Abarim, also says nothing about "Hebrew poets" or of laish being a root, rather than a full word.
 * One apparent source was missing, as some information seems to come from "Laish" at the same website (only "Laisha" page was indicated).


 * The paragraph seems to have been introduced here in 2015 by, in combination with more information re. Egyptian sources. Arminden (talk) 07:13, 20 July 2022 (UTC)