Abdastartus

Abdastartus (Phoenician: 𐤏𐤁𐤃𐤏𐤔𐤕𐤓𐤕 ’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.