Abdastartus Explained

Abdastartus
King of Tyre
Reign:929 – 921 BC
Predecessor:Baal-Eser I (Beleazarus I, Ba‘l-mazzer I) 946 – 930 BC
Successor:Astartus (‘Ashtart) 920 – 901 BC
Dynasty:Dynasty of Abibaal and Hiram I
Father:Baal-Eser I (Beleazarus I, Ba‘l-mazzer I)
Mother:unknown
Birth Date:950 BC
Birth Place:Tyre, presumed
Death Date:921 or 920 BC

Abdastartus (Phoenician: ’bd’štrt, possibly pronounced akin to ’Abd-’Ashtart) was a king of Tyre, son of Baal-Eser I (Beleazarus) and grandson of Hiram I. The only information available about Abdastartus comes from the following citation of the Phoenician author Menander of Ephesus, in Josephus's Against Apion i.18:

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; he lived twenty-nine years, and reigned nine years. Now four sons of his nurse plotted against him and slew him.

Therefore, according to Menander/Josephus, Abdastartus began to reign seven years after the death of his grandfather, Hiram I. 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.

See also

Notes and References

  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 Riro”, 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.