Tel Dan Nature Reserve 4.02

Dan, is a city mentioned in the Bible, described as the northernmost city of the Kingdom of Israel, belonging to the Tribe of Dan. The city is identified with the tel known as Tel Dan ("Mound of Dan" תל דן in Hebrew), or Tel el-Qadi تل القاضي ("Mound of the Judge") in Arabic.Identification and namesThe American naval officer William F. Lynch identified Tell el Kadi as the site of ancient Dan in 1849. Three years later, Edward Robinson also made the same identification and this identification is now securely accepted.The Hebrew Bible states that the site prior to its conquest by the Tribe of Dan was known as Laysha; with variant spellings within Judges, Joshua and Isaiah. The name Tel Dan is a modern Israeli name for the site.GeographyDan is situated in Israel, in the area known as the Galilee Panhandle. 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.