Dan (ancient city)

Dan (דן) is an ancient city mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, described as the northernmost city of the Kingdom of Israel, and belonging to the tribe of Dan. The city is identified with a tell located in Upper Galilee, northern Israel, known as Tel Dan (; "Mound of Dan") in Hebrew. The Hebrew Bible states that prior to its conquest by the tribe of Dan the site was known as Laish with variant spellings within the Books of Joshua, Judges and Isaiah. In it is called Leshem, which means "jewel". has the alternative name Laishah in a number of translations. Rabbinic works, and writers like Philostorgius, Theodoret, Benjamin of Tudela and Samuel ben Samson, all incorrectly identified Dan or Laish, with Banias (Paneas). Eusebius of Caesarea more accurately places Dan/Laish in the vicinity of Paneas at the fourth mile on the route to Tyre. 19th century Swiss traveler Johann Ludwig Burckhardt identified the source of the Jordan river having the name "Dhan" ( ضان) in his travelogue published posthumously in 1822. The American naval officer William F. Lynch was the first to identify Tell el-Qadi as the site of the ancient city of Dan in 1849. Three years later, Edward Robinson made the same identification, and this identification is now securely accepted. Tel Dan is the modern Israeli name for the site, based on the original Biblical name. Dan is situated in the area known as the Galilee Panhandle, which is a part of Upper Galilee. To the west is the southern part of Mount Lebanon; to the east and north are the Hermon mountains. Melting snow from the Hermon mountains provides the majority of the water of the Jordan River, and passes through Dan, making the immediate area highly fertile. The lush vegetation that results makes the area around Dan seem somewhat out of place in the otherwise arid region around it. Due to its location close to the border with Syria and Lebanon at the far north of the territory which fell under the British Mandate of Palestine, the site has a long and often bitterly contested modern history, most recently during the 1967 Six-Day War.