Abdastartus

"‘Abd-‘Ashtart" redirects here. For the 4th-century BC ruler of Sidon, see Abdashtart I.
Abdastartus
King of Tyre
Reign929 – 921 BC
PredecessorBaal-Eser I (Beleazarus I, Ba‘l-mazzer I) 946 – 930 BC
SuccessorAstartus (‘Ashtart) 920 – 901 BC
Born950 BC
Tyre, presumed
Died921 or 920 BC
DynastyDynasty of Abibaal and Hiram I
FatherBaal-Eser I (Beleazarus I, Ba‘l-mazzer I)
Motherunknown

Abdastartus (Phoenician: 𐤏𐤁𐤃𐤏𐤔𐤕𐤓𐤕 ’bd’štrt, possibly pronounced akin to ’Abd-’Ashtart) was a king of Tyre, son of Baal-Eser I (Beleazarus) and grandson of Hiram I. The only information available about Abdastartus comes from the following citation of the Phoenician author Menander of Ephesus, in Josephus's Against Apion i.18:

Upon the death of Hirom, Beleazarus his son took the kingdom; he lived forty-three years, and reigned seven years: after him succeeded his son Abdastartus; he lived twenty-nine years, and reigned nine years. Now four sons of his nurse plotted against him and slew him.

Therefore, according to Menander/Josephus, Abdastartus began to reign seven years after the death of his grandfather, Hiram I. The dating of Hiram and the following kings is based on the studies of J. Liver,[1] J. M. Peñuela,[2] F. M. Cross,[3] and William H. Barnes,[4] all of whom build on the inscriptional evidence of a synchronism between Baal-Eser II and Shalmaneser III in 841 BC.[5] Earlier studies that did not take this inscriptional evidence into consideration will have differing dates for the kings of Tyre.

  1. ^ J. Liver, “The Chronology of Tyre at the Beginning of the First Millennium B.C.” Israel Exploration Journal 3 (1953) 119-120.
  2. ^ J. M. Peñuela, “La Inscripción Asiria IM 55644 y la Cronología de los reyes de Riro”, Sefarad 13 (1953) 217-37 and 14 (1954) 1-39.
  3. ^ F. M. Cross, “An Interpretation of the Nora Stone,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 208 (1972) 17, n. 11.
  4. ^ William H. Barnes, Studies in the Chronology of the Divided Monarchy of Israel (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991) 29-55.
  5. ^ Fuad Safar, “A Further Text of Shalmaneser III from Assur,” Sumer 7 (1951) 3-21.