Baal-Eser I

Baal-Eser I
King of Tyre
Reign946 – 930 BC
PredecessorHiram I 980 – 947 BC
SuccessorAbdastartus (‘Abd-‘Ashtart) 929 – 921 BC
Born973 BC
Tyre, presumed
Died930 or 929 BC
DynastyDynasty of Abibaal and Hiram I
FatherHiram I
Motherunknown

Baal-Eser I (Beleazarus I, Ba‘l-mazzer I) was a king of Tyre. His father, Hiram I, was a contemporary of David and Solomon, kings of Israel. The only information available about Baal-Eser I comes from the following citation of the Phoenician author Menander of Ephesus, in Josephus's Against Apion I.121:

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.

The dates for Baal-Eser are established from the dates for Hiram. 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.

A further overview of the chronology of Tyrian kings from Hiram I to Pygmalion, with a discussion of the importance of Dido's flight from Tyre and eventual founding of Carthage for dating these kings, is found in the Pygmalion of Tyre article.

  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 Tiro”, 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.