1.1 THE DISCOVERY OF THE EMPIRE OF HAZAEL

Besides Egypt and the Philistine cities, the kingdom of Damascus occupies a prominent place in the Bible. The Assyrian records also reveal the importance of Aram-Damascus on the regional scale. Scholars interested in the history of Israel and of the ancient Near East have long been aware that Hazael's reign marked the apex of Aram-Damascus but it is only in the past two decades that historians realized that Hazael's power far exceeded the confines of the Aramean kingdoms that preceded Hazael's consolidation of Aram-Damascus.

André Lemaire's article “Hazaèl de Damas, roi d'Aram” marked a major step in the recovery of Hazael's regional stature. Lemaire (1991a: 104–6) argues that the available sources (Aramaic, Assyrian, biblical and archaeological) reveal that Hazael built an empire that controlled the entire area west of the Euphrates. Lemaire distinguishes different degrees of Damascene control over Syria-Palestine during the reign of Hazael, ranging from direct control to various degrees of vassalage. Lemaire is cautious about using the term “empire” for Aram-Damascus under Hazael, but he concludes that Hazael was truly the Great King of Syria-Palestine (ibid.: 105).

Two years after Lemaire's article, a fragment of an Aramaic inscription was discovered at Tel Dan (Biran & Naveh 1993: 81–98), followed by two smaller fragments a year later. The three fragments constitute the remains of the so-called Dan Stele (Biran & Naveh 1995: 1–18) that I prefer to consider as an inscription rather than a stele (see §3:4).