Hiram I of Tyre
Hiram I was king of Tyre in the tenth century BC and is known almost entirely through the Hebrew Bible and the historian Josephus, who quotes Phoenician annals now lost. He is generally dated to around 980 to 947 BC. Tyre under him was the leading Phoenician city, built on an island close to the mainland shore, and its wealth came from seaborne trade, purple dye and cedar. Josephus, citing the Tyrian records of Menander of Ephesus, credits him with major public works: joining the island to a smaller adjacent one by filling in the channel, enlarging the eastern quarter, rebuilding temples to Melqart and Astarte, and raising a golden pillar in the temple of Baal Shamem. The biblical accounts make him an ally first of David and then of Solomon. He sent cedar and cypress from Lebanon, and craftsmen, for the building of David's palace and then of the Temple in Jerusalem, receiving wheat, oil and wine in return. The account in Kings records a payment dispute in which Solomon ceded twenty towns in Galilee that Hiram found unsatisfactory. He is also described as partnering in maritime ventures, supplying sailors who knew the sea for Solomon's fleet at Ezion-Geber on the Red Sea, sailing to Ophir for gold. Whether the relationship was between equals or Tyre was the senior partner is disputed; the biblical narrative naturally presents Jerusalem as the more important. His reign coincides with the beginning of Phoenician expansion across the Mediterranean, and Tyrian tradition placed the founding of Carthage by Dido within a few generations of him.
- Lived: 980 BCE – 936 BCE
- Nationality: Phoenician
- Roles: king
