Melqart stele

Melqart stele
The stele
WritingAramaic inscription
Created9th century BCE
Period/cultureAramaean
Discovered1939
PlaceBurayj, 7km north of Aleppo, Syria[1]
Present locationNational Museum of Aleppo
IdentificationAO 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]

  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. ^ [1]Jo Ann Hackett and Aren M. Wilson-Wright., "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