Archaeological Evidence
They Found King David's Name Carved in Stone
Critics said David was a myth. Then a rock surfaced in 1993 with 'House of David' inscribed on it.
For most of the 20th century, a growing number of scholars were confident that King was fictional. A legendary figure. A King Arthur — a compelling story, but not a real person.
Their argument made sense on the surface: outside the Bible, there was no evidence that David existed. No inscriptions. No monuments. No records from neighboring kingdoms mentioning him. For a king who supposedly built a regional empire, that silence was suspicious.
Then a stone surfaced.
The Discovery
In 1993, archaeologist Avraham Biran was excavating Tel — the ruins of an ancient city in northern . His team found a broken basalt stone (called a stele) that had been reused as building material in a later wall.