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81-619: The Tel Dan Stele is a fragmentary stele containing an Aramaic inscription which dates to the 9th century BCE. It is the earliest known extra-biblical archaeological reference to the house of David . The stele was discovered in 1993 in Tel-Dan by Gila Cook , a member of an archaeological team led by Avraham Biran . Its pieces were used to construct an ancient stone wall that survived into modern times. The stele contains several lines of ancient Hebrew . The surviving inscription details that an individual killed Jehoram, King of Israel-Samaria ,

162-524: A stone tortoise and crowned with hornless dragons , while the lower-level officials had to be satisfied with steles with plain rounded tops, standing on simple rectangular pedestals. Steles are found at nearly every significant mountain and historical site in China. The First Emperor made five tours of his domain in the 3rd century BC and had Li Si make seven stone inscriptions commemorating and praising his work, of which fragments of two survive. One of

243-785: A Muslim majority in the Levant is presumed to have been reached by the 13th century. The majority of Levantine Muslims are Sunnis adhering to the four madhhabs ( Hanafi , Shafi'i , Hanbali and Maliki ). Islamic minorities include the Alawites and Nizari Ismailis in Syria, and Twelver Shiites in Lebanon . Levantine Christian groups include Greek Orthodox ( Antiochian Greek ), Syriac Orthodox , Eastern Catholic ( Syriac Catholic , Melkite and Maronite ), Roman Catholic ( Latin ), Nestorian , and Protestant . Armenians mostly belong to

324-474: A T-shaped symbol. Near the ancient northwestern town of Amud in Somalia , whenever an old site had the prefix Aw in its name (such as the ruins of Awbare and Awbube ), it denoted the final resting place of a local saint. Surveys by A.T. Curle in 1934 on several of these important ruined cities recovered various artefacts , such as pottery and coins , which point to a medieval period of activity at

405-654: A commemorative function or served as boundary markers. Although sometimes plain, most bore a cuneiform inscription that would detail the stele's function or the reasons for its erection. The stele from Van's "western niche" contained annals of the reign of Sarduri II , with events detailed yearly and with each year separated by the phrase "For the God Haldi I accomplished these deeds". Urartian steles are sometimes found reused as Christian Armenian gravestones or as spolia in Armenian churches - Maranci suggests this reuse

486-572: A corpus of post-5th century historical texts engraved sometimes on steles, but more generally on materials such as stone and metal ware found in a wide range of mainland Southeast Asia ( Cambodia , Vietnam , Thailand and Laos ) and relating to the Khmer civilization. The study of Khmer inscriptions is known as Khmer epigraphy . Khmer inscriptions are the only local written sources for the study of ancient Khmer civilization. More than 1,200 Khmer inscriptions of varying length have been collected. There

567-534: A family unit or a household scene. One such notable example is the Stele of Hegeso. Typically grave stelai are made of marble and carved in relief, and like most Ancient Greek sculpture they were vibrantly painted. For more examples of stelai, the Getty Museum's published Catalog of Greek Funerary Sculpture is a valuable resource Steles (Chinese: bēi 碑 ) have been a major medium of stone inscription in China,

648-1573: A flurry of articles, debating its age, authorship, and authenticity; however, the stele is generally accepted by scholars as genuine and a reference to the house of David. The following is the transcription. Dots separate words (as in the original), empty square brackets indicate damaged/missing text, and text inside square brackets is reconstructed by Biran and Naveh: 2. [ ---].𐤀𐤁𐤉.𐤉𐤎𐤒[.𐤏𐤋𐤅𐤄.𐤁𐤄]𐤕𐤋𐤇𐤌𐤄.𐤁𐤀[ ] ‎ 3. 𐤅𐤉𐤔𐤊𐤁.𐤀𐤁𐤉.𐤉𐤄𐤊.𐤀𐤋[.𐤀𐤁𐤄𐤅]𐤄.𐤅𐤉𐤏𐤋.𐤌𐤋𐤊𐤉[ 𐤉𐤔] ‎ 4. 𐤓𐤀𐤋.𐤒𐤃𐤌.𐤁𐤀𐤓𐤒.𐤀𐤁𐤉[.𐤅]𐤄𐤌𐤋𐤊.𐤄𐤃𐤃[.]𐤀[𐤉𐤕𐤉] ‎ 5. 𐤀𐤍𐤄.𐤅𐤉𐤄𐤊.𐤄𐤃𐤃.𐤒𐤃𐤌𐤉[.𐤅]𐤀𐤐𐤒.𐤌𐤍.𐤔𐤁𐤏[𐤕---] ‎ 6. 𐤉.𐤌𐤋𐤊𐤉.𐤅𐤀𐤒𐤕𐤋.𐤌𐤋[𐤊𐤍.𐤔𐤁]𐤏𐤍.𐤀𐤎𐤓𐤉.𐤀[𐤋𐤐𐤉.𐤓] ‎ 7. 𐤊𐤁.𐤅𐤀𐤋𐤐𐤉.𐤐𐤓𐤔.[𐤒𐤕𐤋𐤕.𐤀𐤉𐤕.𐤉𐤄𐤅]𐤓𐤌.𐤁𐤓.[𐤀𐤇𐤀𐤁.] ‎ 8. 𐤌𐤋𐤊.𐤉𐤔𐤓𐤀𐤋.𐤅𐤒𐤕𐤋[𐤕.𐤀𐤉𐤕.𐤀𐤇𐤆]𐤉𐤄𐤅.𐤁𐤓[.𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤓𐤌.𐤌𐤋] ‎ 9. 𐤊.𐤁𐤉𐤕𐤃𐤅𐤃.𐤅𐤀𐤔𐤌.[𐤀𐤉𐤕.𐤒𐤓𐤉𐤕.𐤄𐤌.𐤇𐤓𐤁𐤕.𐤅𐤀𐤄𐤐𐤊.𐤀] ‎ 10. 𐤉𐤕.𐤀𐤓𐤒.𐤄𐤌.𐤋[𐤉𐤔𐤌𐤍 ] ‎ 11. 𐤀𐤇𐤓𐤍.𐤅𐤋𐤄[... 𐤅𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤀.𐤌] ‎ 12. 𐤋𐤊.𐤏𐤋.𐤉𐤔[𐤓𐤀𐤋... 𐤅𐤀𐤔𐤌.] ‎ Romanized: The 1995 translation by Biran reads; Other scholars have presented alternate translations. For example, Andre Lemaire's 1998 translation reads; The main differences are on line 6 and 7; Lemaire suggests that two kings, rather than seventy, were killed and that they possessed two thousand chariots and horsemen. In

729-621: A hallmark of Classic Maya civilization. The earliest dated stela to have been found in situ in the Maya lowlands was recovered from the great city of Tikal in Guatemala . During the Classic Period almost every Maya kingdom in the southern lowlands raised stelae in its ceremonial centre. Stelae became closely associated with the concept of divine kingship and declined at the same time as this institution. The production of stelae by

810-690: A large part of Ancient Greek funerary markers in Athens. Regarding stelai (Greek plural of stele), in the period of the Archaic style in Ancient Athens (600 BC) stele often showed certain archetypes of figures, such as the male athlete. Generally their figures were singular, though there are instances of two or more figures from this time period. Moving into the 6th and 5th centuries BC, Greek stelai declined and then rose in popularity again in Athens and evolved to show scenes with multiple figures, often of

891-528: A variety of Arabic descended from the pre-Islamic Arabic dialects of Syria and Hejazi Arabic , but retaining significant influence from Western Middle Aramaic . Levantine Arabic is usually classified as North Levantine Arabic in Lebanon, Syria, and parts of Turkey, and South Levantine Arabic in Palestine and Jordan. Each of these encompasses a spectrum of regional or urban/rural variations. In addition to

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972-493: A widespread social and religious phenomenon. Emperors found it necessary to promulgate laws, regulating the use of funerary steles by the population. The Ming dynasty laws, instituted in the 14th century by its founder the Hongwu Emperor , listed a number of stele types available as status symbols to various ranks of the nobility and officialdom: the top noblemen and mandarins were eligible for steles installed on top of

1053-401: Is a suggestion of a siege, possibly of Samaria , the capital of the kings of Israel. This reading is, however, disputed. The stele was found in three fragments, called A, B1 and B2. There is widespread agreement that all three belong to the same inscription, and that B1 and B2 belong together. There is less agreement over the fit between A and the combined B1/B2: Biran and Naveh placed B1/B2 to

1134-765: Is borrowed from the French levant 'rising', referring to the rising of the sun in the east, or the point where the sun rises. The phrase is ultimately from the Latin word levare , meaning 'lift, raise'. Similar etymologies are found in Greek Ἀνατολή Anatolē ( cf. Anatolia 'the direction of sunrise'), in Germanic Morgenland ( lit.   ' morning land ' ), in Italian (as in Riviera di Levante ,

1215-419: Is dependent on a particular arrangement of the fragments, and not all scholars agree on this. In the reconstructed text, the author tells how Israel had invaded his country in his father's day, and how the god Hadad then made him king and marched with him against Israel. The author then reports that he defeated seventy kings with thousands of chariots and horses (more on this below). In the very last line there

1296-475: Is possible that the phrase was treated as a compound word combining a personal name with a relational noun. Mykytiuk argues that readings other than "House of David" are unlikely. Yosef Garfinkel has been vocally critical of alternate translations, characterizing them as "suggestions that now seem ridiculous: The Hebrew bytdwd should be read not as the House of David , but as a place named betdwd , in parallel to

1377-684: Is the Rosetta Stone , which led to the breakthrough allowing Egyptian hieroglyphs to be read. An informative stele of Tiglath-Pileser III is preserved in the British Museum . Two steles built into the walls of a church are major documents relating to the Etruscan language . Standing stones ( menhirs ), set up without inscriptions from Libya in North Africa to Scotland , were monuments of pre-literate Megalithic cultures in

1458-555: Is the son of an Israelite king, Ahab, by his Phoenician wife Jezebel . The likely candidate for having erected the stele, according to the Hebrew Bible, is Hazael , king of Aram-Damascus , whose language would have been Old Aramaic . He is mentioned in 2 Kings 12 :17–18 as having conquered Israel-Samaria but not Jerusalem: At that time, King Hazael of Aram came up and attacked Gath and captured it; and Hazael proceeded to march on Jerusalem. Thereupon King Joash of Judah took all

1539-571: The 13th and 14th centuries, the term levante was used for Italian maritime commerce in the Eastern Mediterranean, including Greece, Anatolia , Syria-Palestine , and Egypt , that is, the lands east of Venice . Eventually the term was restricted to the Muslim countries of Syria-Palestine and Egypt. The term entered English in the late 15th century from French. It derives from the Italian levante , meaning "rising", implying

1620-669: The Armenian Apostolic Church . There are also Levantines or Franco-Levantines who adhere to Roman Catholicism . There are also Assyrians belonging to the Assyrian Church of the East and the Chaldean Catholic Church . Other religious groups in the Levant include Jews , Samaritans , Yazidis and Druze . Most populations in the Levant speak Levantine Arabic ( شامي , Šāmī ),

1701-474: The Copenhagen school ) – Niels Peter Lemche , Thomas L. Thompson , and F. H. Cryer – have proposed still later datings. Two biblical scholars, Cryer and Lemche , analyzed the cracks and chisel marks around the fragment and also the lettering towards the edges of the fragments. From this they concluded that the text was in fact a modern forgery. Most scholars have ignored or rejected these judgments because

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1782-591: The Far East , and, independently, by Mesoamerican civilisations, notably the Olmec and Maya . The large number of stelae, including inscriptions, surviving from ancient Egypt and in Central America constitute one of the largest and most significant sources of information on those civilisations, in particular Maya stelae . The most famous example of an inscribed stela leading to increased understanding

1863-465: The First Dynasty of Egypt . These vertical slabs of stone are used as tombstones, for religious usage, and to mark boundaries, and are most commonly made of limestone and sandstone, or harder kinds of stone such as granite or diorite, but wood was also used in later times. Stele fulfilled several functions. There were votive, commemorative, and liminal or boundary stelae, but the largest group

1944-480: The Greek islands ). In 19th-century archaeology, it referred to overlapping cultures in this region during and after prehistoric times, intending to reference the place instead of any one culture. The French mandate of Syria and Lebanon (1920–1946) was called the Levant states. Today, "Levant" is the term typically used by archaeologists and historians with reference to the history of the region. Scholars have adopted

2025-646: The Iron Age kingdom which existed in the Armenian Highlands of modern Armenia , Turkey and Iran between the 9th and 6th centuries BC. Some were located within temple complexes, set within monumental rock-cut niches (such as the niche of the Rock of Van , discovered by Marr and Orbeli in 1916 ), or erected beside tombs. Others stood in isolated positions and, such as the Kelashin Stele , had

2106-535: The Late Stone Age . The Pictish stones of Scotland, often intricately carved, date from between the 6th and 9th centuries. An obelisk is a specialized kind of stele. The Insular high crosses of Ireland and Great Britain are specialized steles . Totem poles of North and South America that are made out of stone may also be considered a specialized type of stele. Gravestones , typically with inscribed name and often with inscribed epitaph , are among

2187-807: The Latin Christians of the Levant continue to be called Levantine Christians . The Levant has been described as the "crossroads of Western Asia , the Eastern Mediterranean, and Northeast Africa ", and in geological ( tectonic ) terms as the "northwest of the Arabian Plate ". The populations of the Levant share not only geographic position, but cuisine , some customs, and history . They are often referred to as Levantines . The term Levant appears in English in 1497 , and originally meant 'the East ' or 'Mediterranean lands east of Italy'. It

2268-561: The Maya had its origin around 400 BC and continued through to the end of the Classic Period, around 900, although some monuments were reused in the Postclassic ( c.  900 –1521). The major city of Calakmul in Mexico raised the greatest number of stelae known from any Maya city , at least 166, although they are very poorly preserved. Hundreds of stelae have been recorded in

2349-570: The Maya civilization of ancient Mesoamerica . They consist of tall sculpted stone shafts or slabs and are often associated with low circular stones referred to as altars, although their actual function is uncertain. Many stelae were sculpted in low relief, although plain monuments are found throughout the Maya region. The sculpting of these monuments spread throughout the Maya area during the Classic Period (250–900 AD), and these pairings of sculpted stelae and circular altars are considered

2430-523: The Merneptah Stele , which features the first known historical mention of the Israelites . In Ptolemaic times (332 - 30 BC), decrees issued by the pharaoh and the priesthood were inscribed on stelae in hieroglyphs, demotic script and Greek, the most famous example of which is the Rosetta Stone . Urartian steles were freestanding stone obelisks that served a variety of purposes, erected in

2511-714: The Ottoman Sultan in 1579. The English Levant Company was founded in 1581 to trade with the Ottoman Empire , and in 1670 the French Compagnie du Levant  [ fr ] was founded for the same purpose. At this time, the Far East was known as the "Upper Levant". In early 19th-century travel writing , the term sometimes incorporated certain Mediterranean provinces of the Ottoman Empire , as well as independent Greece (and especially

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2592-517: The Sinai Peninsula (Asian Egypt) are sometimes included. As a name for the contemporary region, several dictionaries consider Levant to be archaic today. Both the noun Levant and the adjective Levantine are now commonly used to describe the ancient and modern culture area formerly called Syro-Palestinian or Biblical: archaeologists now speak of the Levant and of Levantine archaeology ; food scholars speak of Levantine cuisine ; and

2673-735: The Southern Levant . While the usage of the term "Levant" in academia has been restricted to the fields of archeology and literature, there is a recent attempt to reclaim the notion of the Levant as a category of analysis in political and social sciences. Two academic journals were launched in the early 2010s using the word: the Journal of Levantine Studies , published by the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute and The Levantine Review , published by Boston College . The word Levant has been used in some translations of

2754-498: The battlefield of Waterloo at the locations of notable actions by participants in battle. A traditional Western gravestone (headstone, tombstone, gravestone, or marker) may technically be considered the modern equivalent of ancient stelae, though the term is very rarely applied in this way. Equally, stele-like forms in non-Western cultures may be called by other terms, and the words "stele" and "stelae" are most consistently applied in archaeological contexts to objects from Europe,

2835-839: The clerical script . Chinese steles from before the Tang dynasty are rare: there are a handful from before the Qin dynasty , roughly a dozen from the Western Han , 160 from the Eastern Han , and several hundred from the Wei , Jin , Northern and Southern , and Sui dynasties . During the Han dynasty, tomb inscriptions ( 墓誌 , mùzhì ) containing biographical information on deceased people began to be written on stone tablets rather than wooden ones. Erecting steles at tombs or temples eventually became

2916-577: The Maya region, displaying a wide stylistic variation. Many are upright slabs of limestone sculpted on one or more faces, with available surfaces sculpted with figures carved in relief and with hieroglyphic text . Stelae in a few sites display a much more three-dimensional appearance where locally available stone permits, such as at Copán and Toniná . Plain stelae do not appear to have been painted nor overlaid with stucco decoration, but most Maya stelae were probably brightly painted in red, yellow, black, blue and other colours. Khmer inscriptions are

2997-572: The ancient Near East and Egypt, China, and sometimes Pre-Columbian America. Steles have also been used to publish laws and decrees, to record a ruler's exploits and honors, to mark sacred territories or mortgaged properties, as territorial markers, as the boundary steles of Akhenaton at Amarna , or to commemorate military victories. They were widely used in the ancient Near East , Mesopotamia , Greece , Egypt , Somalia , Eritrea , Ethiopia , and, most likely independently, in China and elsewhere in

3078-732: The area that is bounded by the Taurus Mountains of Turkey in the north, the Mediterranean Sea in the west, the north Arabian Desert and Mesopotamia in the east, and Sinai in the south (which can be fully included or not). Typically, it does not include Anatolia (also known as Asia Minor), the Caucasus Mountains, or any part of the Arabian Peninsula proper. Cilicia (in Asia Minor) and

3159-503: The artifacts were recovered during controlled excavations. The language of the inscription is a dialect of Aramaic . Most scholars identify Hazael of Damascus (c. 842 – 806 BCE) as the author, although his name is not mentioned. Other proposals regarding the author have been made: George Athas has argued for Hazael's son Ben-Hadad III , which would date the inscription to around 796 BCE, and Jan-Wim Wesselius has argued for Jehu of Israel ( r.  c. 845 – 818 BCE ). While

3240-404: The biblical version of Israel's past lies particularly in lines 8 and 9, which mention a "king of Israel" and possibly a "house of David". The latter reading is accepted by a majority of scholars, but not all. Dissenting scholars note that word dividers are employed elsewhere throughout the inscription, and one would expect to find one between byt and dwd in bytdwd too if the intended reading

3321-526: The boundaries of the Levant as follows. A distinction is made between the main subregions of the Levant, the northern and the southern: The island of Cyprus is also included as a third subregion in the archaeological region of the Levant: The vast majority of Levantines are Muslims . After the Muslim conquest of the Levant in the 7th century, Islam was first introduced into the region. However,

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3402-517: The earliest examples dating from the Qin dynasty . Chinese steles are generally rectangular stone tablets upon which Chinese characters are carved intaglio with a funerary, commemorative, or edifying text. They can commemorate talented writers and officials, inscribe poems, portraits, or maps, and frequently contain the calligraphy of famous historical figures. In addition to their commemorative value, many Chinese steles are regarded as exemplars of traditional Chinese calligraphic scripts, especially

3483-460: The highlands of Ethiopia and Eritrea , the Axumites erected a number of large stelae, which served a religious purpose in pre-Christian times. One of these granite columns is the largest such structure in the world, standing at 90 feet. Additionally, Tiya is one of nine megalithic pillar sites in the central Gurage Zone of Ethiopia. As of 1997, 118 stele were reported in the area. Along with

3564-452: The inscription should instead grammatically be read as "two kings" were slain, in line with the subsequent description of the inscription of only having defeated two kings. Other scholars have followed and further developed Lemaire's reading. Matthew Suriano has defended the "seventy" reading, arguing that it is a symbolic trope in ancient near eastern military language, representing the defeat of all other claimants to power. Noting that Hazael

3645-613: The inscription's reference to a "king of the house of David" constitutes primary evidence that David was a historical figure and the founder of a centralized Iron Age II dynasty. Stele Stelae were created for many reasons. Grave stelae were used for funerary or commemorative purposes. Stelae as slabs of stone would also be used as ancient Greek and Roman government notices or as boundary markers to mark borders or property lines . Stelae were occasionally erected as memorials to battles. For example, along with other memorials, there are more than half-a-dozen steles erected on

3726-746: The island of Cyprus in Levantine studies, including the Council for British Research in the Levant , the UCLA Near Eastern Languages and Cultures department, Journal of Levantine Studies and the UCL Institute of Archaeology, the last of which has dated the connection between Cyprus and mainland Levant to the early Iron Age . Archaeologists seeking a neutral orientation that is neither biblical nor national have used terms such as Levantine archaeology and archaeology of

3807-565: The late 9th century BCE. The unnamed king boasts of his victories over the king of Israel and his apparent ally the king of the "House of David" ( Imperial Aramaic : 𐤁𐤉𐤕𐤃𐤅𐤃 , romanized:  bytdwd ). It is considered the earliest widely accepted reference to the name David as the founder of a Judahite polity outside of the Hebrew Bible , though the earlier Mesha Stele contains several possible references with varying acceptance. A minority of scholars has disputed

3888-552: The later history by being buried underground for several centuries. Steles created by the Kaifeng Jews in 1489, 1512, and 1663, have survived the repeated flooding of the Yellow River that destroyed their synagogue several times, to tell us something about their world. China's Muslim have a number of steles of considerable antiquity as well, often containing both Chinese and Arabic text. Thousands of steles, surplus to

3969-535: The left of A (the photograph at the top of this article). A few scholars have disputed this, William Schniedewind proposing some minor adjustments to the same fit, Gershon Galil placing B above A rather than beside it, and George Athas fitting it well below. Archaeologists and epigraphers put the earliest possible date at about 870 BCE, whilst the latest possible date is "less clear", although according to Lawrence J. Mykytiuk it could "hardly have been much later than 750". However, some scholars (mainly associated with

4050-560: The middle Euphrates . Its overwhelming characteristic is that it represents the land bridge between Africa and Eurasia . In its widest historical sense, the Levant included all of the Eastern Mediterranean with its islands; that is, it included all of the countries along the Eastern Mediterranean shores, extending from Greece in Southern Europe to Egypt and Cyrenaica (Eastern Libya) in Northern Africa . In

4131-704: The most common types of stele seen in Western culture. Most recently, in the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin , the architect Peter Eisenman created a field of some 2,700 blank steles. The memorial is meant to be read not only as the field, but also as an erasure of data that refer to memory of the Holocaust. Egyptian steles (or Stelae, Books of Stone) have been found dating as far back as

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4212-465: The most famous mountain steles is the 13 m (43 ft) high stele at Mount Tai with the personal calligraphy of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang commemorating his imperial sacrifices there in 725. A number of such stone monuments have preserved the origin and history of China's minority religious communities. The 8th-century Christians of Xi'an left behind the Xi'an Stele , which survived adverse events of

4293-655: The north. Two minority languages are recognized: Armenian , and Cypriot Maronite Arabic , a hybrid of mostly medieval Arabic vernaculars with strong influence from contact with Turkish and Greek, spoken by approximately 1,000 people. Western Neo-Aramaic is additionally spoken in three villages in Syria: Maaloula , Jubb'adin and Bakhah . Among diaspora communities based in the Levant, Greek , Armenian and Circassian are also spoken. According to recent ancient DNA studies, Levantines derive most of their ancestry from ancient Semitic-speaking peoples of

4374-511: The objects that had been consecrated by his predecessors, Kings Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, and Ahaziah of Judah, and by himself, and all the gold that there was in the treasuries of the Temple of GOD and in the royal palace, and he sent them to King Hazael of Aram, who then turned back from his march on Jerusalem. Fragment A of the stele was discovered in July 1993 by Gila Cook of Avraham Biran 's team who

4455-404: The original requirements, and no longer associated with the person they were erected for or to, have been assembled in Xi'an's Stele Forest Museum , which is a popular tourist attraction. Elsewhere, many unwanted steles can also be found in selected places in Beijing, such as Dong Yue Miao, the Five Pagoda Temple, and the Bell Tower, again assembled to attract tourists and also as a means of solving

4536-441: The original translators proposed that line 6 of the inscription refers to the slaying of "seventy kings", later epigraphers have offered alternative readings. Nadav Na'aman proposed that the line should be read as Hazael slew "mighty kings". According to Lemaire, "the reading 'seventy' is based only on a very small fragment of a letter which is interpreted as part of an 'ayin but could also be part of another letter". He proposed that

4617-420: The pharaoh, or his senior officials, detailing important events of his reign. Some of the most widely known Egyptian stelae include: the Kamose Stelae, recounting the defeat of the Hyksos ; the Victory Stele , describing the campaigns of the Nubian pharaoh Piye as he reconquered the country; the Restoration Stele of Tutankhamun (1336 - 1327 BC), detailing the religious reforms enacted after the Amarna period; and

4698-432: The political term, Middle East to the east . In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is equivalent to Cyprus and a stretch of land bordering the Mediterranean Sea in western Asia: i.e. the historical region of Syria ("Greater Syria"), which includes present-day Israel , Jordan , Lebanon , Syria , the Palestinian territories and most of Turkey southwest of

4779-469: The portion of the Liguria coast east of Genoa ), in Hungarian Kelet ('east'), in Spanish and Catalan Levante and Llevant , ('the place of rising'), and in Hebrew מִזְרָח mizraḥ ('east'). Most notably, "Orient" and its Latin source oriens meaning 'east', is literally "rising", deriving from Latin orior 'rise'. The notion of the Levant has undergone a dynamic process of historical evolution in usage, meaning, and understanding. While

4860-405: The present and the afterlife, which allowed the deceased to receive offerings. These were both real and represented by formulae on the false door. Liminal, or boundary, stele were used to mark size and location of fields and the country's borders. Votive stelae were exclusively erected in temples by pilgrims to pay homage to the gods or sacred animals. Commemorative stelae were placed in temples by

4941-548: The problem faced by local authorities of what to do with them. The long, wordy, and detailed inscriptions on these steles are almost impossible to read for most are lightly engraved on white marble in characters only an inch or so in size, thus being difficult to see since the slabs are often 3m or more tall. There are more than 100,000 surviving stone inscriptions in China. However, only approximately 30,000 have been transcribed or had rubbings made, and fewer than those 30,000 have been formally studied. Maya stelae were fashioned by

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5022-424: The reason why the term Levant has come to be used more specifically to refer to modern Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, Jordan, and the island of Cyprus . Some scholars mistakenly believed that it derives from the name of Lebanon. Today the term is often used in conjunction with prehistoric or ancient historical references. Another term for "Syria-Palestine" is Ash- Shaam ( Arabic : ٱلشَّام , /ʔaʃ.ʃaːm/ ),

5103-428: The reference to David, due to the lack of a word divider between byt and dwd , and other translations have been proposed. The Tel Dan stele is one of only four known extra-biblical inscriptions made during a roughly 400-year period (1200–800 BCE) containing the name "Israel", the others being the Merneptah Stele , the Mesha Stele , and the Kurkh Monoliths . The Tel Dan inscription generated considerable debate and

5184-402: The rising of the Sun in the east, and is broadly equivalent to the term al-Mashriq ( Arabic : ٱلْمَشْرِق , [ʔal.maʃ.riq] ), meaning "the eastern place, where the Sun rises". In 1581, England set up the Levant Company to trade with the Ottoman Empire . The name Levant States was used to refer to the French mandate over Syria and Lebanon after World War I . This is probably

5265-409: The second half of the 9th century BCE (the most widely accepted date for the stele), the kingdom of Aram-Damascus, under its ruler Hazael, was a major power in the Levant . Dan, just 70 miles from Hazael's capital of Damascus , would almost certainly have come under its sway. This is borne out by the archaeological evidence: Israelite remains do not appear until the 8th century BCE, and apparently Dan

5346-416: The son of Ahab , and Ahaziah of Judah , a king of the house of David. The stele, which is ordinarily on display at the Israel Museum , is currently (from September 2024 to November 22, 2024) on exhibition in the United States at Armstrong Auditorium in Edmond, Oklahoma. It is known as KAI 310. These writings corroborate passages from the Hebrew Bible , as the Second Book of Kings mentions that Jehoram

5427-402: The son of the king from the "house of David"). R.G. Lehmann and M. Reichel proposes interpreting the phrase as a reference to the name or epithet of a deity. According to Anson Rainey the presence or absence of word dividers is normally inconsequential for interpretation. Word dividers as well as compound words are used elsewhere in the inscription and generally in West Semitic languages, so it

5508-610: The stelae in the Hadiya Zone, the structures are identified by local residents as Yegragn Dingay or "Gran's stone", in reference to Imam Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi (Ahmad "Gurey" or "Gran"), ruler of the Adal Sultanate . The stelae at Tiya and other areas in central Ethiopia are similar to those on the route between Djibouti City and Loyada in Djibouti . In the latter area, there are a number of anthropomorphic and phallic stelae, which are associated with graves of rectangular shape flanked by vertical slabs. The Djibouti-Loyada stelae are of uncertain age, and some of them are adorned with

5589-418: The tail end of the Adal Sultanate's reign. Among these settlements, Aw Barkhadle is surrounded by a number of ancient stelae. Burial sites near Burao likewise feature old stelae. Levant The Levant ( / l ə ˈ v æ n t / lə- VANT ) is a term used to define the historical and geographical subregion that borders the Eastern Mediterranean sea to the west and core West Asia , or by

5670-468: The term ash-Shām as used by the organization known as ISIL, ISIS, and other names , though there is disagreement as to whether this translation is accurate. In The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Levant: c. 8000–332 BCE (OHAL; 2013), the definition of the Levant for the specific purposes of the book is synonymous to that of the Arabic " bilad al-sham , 'the land of sham [Syria]'", translating in Western parlance to greater Syria . OHAL defines

5751-433: The term "Levantine" originally referred to the European residents of the eastern Mediterranean region, it later came to refer to regional "native" and "minority" groups. The term became current in English in the 16th century, along with the first English merchant adventurers in the region; English ships appeared in the Mediterranean in the 1570s, and the English merchant company signed its agreement (" capitulations ") with

5832-514: The term Levant to identify the region due to its being a "wider, yet relevant, cultural corpus" that does not have the "political overtones" of Syria-Palestine. The term is also used for modern events, peoples, states or parts of states in the same region, namely Cyprus , Egypt , Iraq , Israel , Jordan , Lebanon , Palestine , Syria , and Turkey are sometimes considered Levant countries (compare with Near East , Middle East , Eastern Mediterranean and West Asia ). Several researchers include

5913-400: The varieties normally grouped together as "Levantine", a number of other varieties and dialects of Arabic are spoken in the Levant area, such as Levantine Bedawi Arabic (by Bedouins ) and Mesopotamian Arabic (in eastern Syria). Of the languages of Cyprus , the two official languages are Turkish and Greek. The most used languages by population are Greek in the south followed by Turkish in

5994-430: The well-known place-name Ashdod . Other minimalist suggestions included House of Uncle , House of Kettle and House of Beloved ." Francesca Stavrakopoulou states that even if the inscription refers to a "House of David" it testifies neither to the historicity of David nor to the existence of a 9th-century BCE Judahite kingdom. Garfinkel argues that, combined with archaeological evidence unearthed at Khirbet Qeiyafa ,

6075-424: Was "House of David". They contend that reading dwd as "David" is complicated since the word can also mean "uncle" (dōd) (a word with a rather wider meaning in ancient times than it has today), "beloved", or "kettle" (dūd). Lemche and Athas suggests that bytdwd could be a place-name and Athas that it refers to Jerusalem (so that the author might be claiming to have killed the son of the king of Jerusalem, rather than

6156-524: Was a deliberate desire to capitalize on the potency of the past. Some scholars have suggested Urartian steles may have influenced the development of the Armenian khachkar . Greek funerary markers, especially in Attica, had a long and evolutionary history in Athens. From public and extravagant processional funerals to different types of pottery used to store ashes after cremation, visibility has always been

6237-435: Was already in the orbit of Damascus even before Hazael became king in c. 843 BCE. The author of the inscription mentions conflict with the kings of Israel and the 'House of David'. The names of the two enemy kings are only partially legible. Biran and Naveh reconstructed them as Joram, son of Ahab , King of Israel, and Ahaziah, son of Joram of the House of David. Scholars seem to be evenly divided on these identifications. It

6318-563: Was an 'explosion' of Khmer epigraphy from the seventh century, with the earliest recorded Khmer stone inscription dating from 612 AD at Angkor Borei . Ogham stones are vertical grave and boundary markers, erected at hundreds of sites in Ireland throughout the first millennium AD, bearing inscriptions in the Primitive Irish language. They have occasionally been described as "steles." The Horn of Africa contains many stelae. In

6399-543: Was himself a usurper to the throne of Aram-Damascus, he argues that ancient Syria would have posited a number of other rivals for the throne and that Hazael's claim to have slain "seventy kings" is a reference to him defeating his rivals in succession to the throne of Aram-Damascus. Since 1993–1994, when the first fragment was discovered and published, the Tel Dan stele has been the object of great interest and debate among epigraphers and biblical scholars . Its significance for

6480-561: Was studying Tel Dan in northern Israel. Fragments B1 and B2 were found in June 1994. The stele was not excavated in its " primary context ", but in its "secondary use". The fragments were published by Biran and his colleague Joseph Naveh in 1993 and 1995. The Tel Dan stele consists of several fragments making up part of a triumphal inscription in Old Aramaic , left most probably by Hazael of Aram-Damascus , an important regional figure in

6561-527: Was the tomb stelae. Their picture area showed the owner of the stele, often with his family, and an inscription listed the name and titles of the deceased after a prayer to one, or several, of the gods of the dead and request for offerings. Less frequently, an autobiographical text provided additional information about the individual's life. In the mastaba tombs of the Old Kingdom (2686 - 2181 BC), stelae functioned as false doors, symbolizing passage between

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