Melqart stele

Melqart stele
The stele
Writing	Aramaic inscription
Created	9th century BCE
Period/culture	Aramaean
Discovered	1939
Place	Burayj, 7km north of Aleppo, Syria [1]
Present location	National Museum of Aleppo
Identification	AO 8185

The Melqart stele, also known as the Ben-Hadad or Bir-Hadad stele is an Aramaic stele which was created during the 9th century BCE and was discovered in 1939 in Roman ruins in Bureij Syria (7 km north of Aleppo). ^[2] The Old Aramaic inscription is known as KAI 201; its five lines reads:

“The stele which Bar-Had-

-ad, son of [...]

king of Aram, erected to his Lord Melqar-

-t, to whom he made a vow and who heard his voi-

-ce.”

According to William Foxwell Albright, the stele should be attributed to Ben-Hadad I, an Aramean king mentioned in the First Book of Kings. ^[3] However, Kenneth Kitchen disagrees and states that there is no actual evidence that connects the Melqart stele to Ben-Hadad I. ^[4] a recent re-analysis of the stele indicated that the Ben-Hadad referred to is actually the king of Arpad. ^[5]

Hackett and Wilson-Wright reconstitute the first two lines of the inscription as,

"1. The statue which Bir-Ha-
2. dad, son of ʕAttar-sumkī, Bir-Gūš,"

According to them,

"Attar-sumkī was a king from the line of Gūš, the founder of a dynasty originally from the tribe of Yaḫan in the early ninth century BCE."

See also

• List of Neo-Hittite kings
• List of artifacts significant to the Bible

Notes

1. "Burayj ar Rīḩ, Aleppo Governorate, Syria".
2. Pitard, Wayne T. (1988). "The Identity of the Bir-Hadad of the Melqart Stela". Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research (272): 3–21. doi:10.2307/1356783. JSTOR   1356783. S2CID   163606326.
3. Albright, W. F. (October 1942). "A Votive Stele Erected by Ben-Hadad I of Damascus to the God Melcarth". Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research. 87 (87): 23–29. doi:10.2307/1355460. JSTOR   1355460. S2CID   163203878.
4. Kitchen, K. A. (2006). On the Reliability of the Old Testament. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. ISBN   978-0-8028-0396-2.
5. Jo Ann Hackett and Aren M. Wilson-Wright 2022, A Revised Interpretation of the Melqart Stele (KAI 201), in SAOC 73. "Like 'Ilu Are You Wise": Studies in Northwest Semitic Languages and Literatures in Honor of Dennis G. Pardee, Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization 73. Chicago: The Oriental Institute, 2022, pp. 105-112. ISBN   978-1-61491-075-6

Bibliography

• Maurice Dunand, Stèle araméenne dédiée à Melqart, Bulletin du Musée de Beyrouth III (1939), p. 65–76
• Dunand, Maurice (1942). "A propos de la stèle de Melqart du musée d'Alep". Bulletin du Musée de Beyrouth. 6: 41–45. OCLC   1136089902.
• Albright, W. F. (1942). "A Votive Stele Erected by Ben-Hadad I of Damascus to the God Melcarth". Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research (87): 23–29. doi:10.2307/1355460. JSTOR   1355460. S2CID   163203878.
• Della Vida, G. Levi; Albright, W. F. (1943). "Some Notes on the Stele of Ben-Hadad". Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research (90): 30–34. doi:10.2307/1354906. JSTOR   1354906. S2CID   163726442.
• Jepsen, Alfred (1952). "Zur Melqart-Stele Barhadads". Archiv für Orientforschung. 16: 315–317. JSTOR   41635800.
• Cross, Frank Moore (1972). "The Stele Dedicated to Melcarth by Ben-Hadad of Damascus". Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research (205): 36–42. doi:10.2307/1356214. JSTOR   1356214. S2CID   163497507.
• Black, Matthew. "The Milqart Stele." In Documents from Old Testament Times. Edited by D. W. Thomas, 239-41. London: Thomas Nelson, 1958. Reprinted, Ancient Texts and Translations. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2005.
• Dearman, J. Andrew; Miller, J. Maxwell (July 1983). "The Melqart Stele and the Ben Hadads of Damascus: Two Studies". Palestine Exploration Quarterly. 115 (2): 95–101. doi:10.1179/peq.1983.115.2.95.
• Reinhold, Gotthard (1 January 1986). "The Bir-Hadad Stele and the Biblical Kings of Aram". Andrews University Seminary Studies. 24 (2).