The ancient city lies at the source of the Dan water system, the main tributary of the Jordan River, Israel, and Jordan’s primary freshwater resource, depicted in the Hebrew Bible as a fount of fertility, its valley watered like the “garden of the Lord”.
A city was first built here during the early Canaanite period. It was populated between 2700 and 2400 BCE. In the eighteenth-century BCE, during the middle Canaanite period, a tremendous earth glacis surrounded the city, protecting it for centuries. The city of Dan is identified in biblical tradition as one of two locations where the infamous Jeroboam I built a shrinet o rival Jerusalem and installed a golden calf.
The city of Dan was destroyed by an earthquake in the mid-8th century BCE, perhaps the “great noise” mentioned in the book of Amos, which would date to 762 BCE. The site was again partially destroyed in the second half of the 8th century BCE, perhaps by Tiglath-Pileser III, king of Assyria.
Ancient city of Dan
