By Craig D Wescoe 
In 1993, excavators at Tel Dan in northern Israel unearthed fragments of a ninth-century BC victory stele bearing the Aramaic phrase bytdwd — “House of David.” It remains the earliest reference to David outside the Bible, and it transformed the scholarly debate over the historical monarchy.
This article will look at the discovery itself, the readings scholars have proposed, and what the stele can — and cannot — prove about David’s kingdom. (Placeholder article — full research to come.)