Eshmunazar I

The Sidonian king is mentioned in the funerary inscriptions engraved on the royal sarcophagi of his son Tabnit I and his grandson Eshmunazar II.

The most complete work addressing the dates of the reigns of these Sidonian kings is by the French historian Josette Elayi who shifted away from the use of biblical chronology.

Elayi used extant documentation, including inscribed Tyrian seals and stamps excavated by the Lebanese archaeologist Maurice Chehab in 1972 from Jal el-Bahr, a neighborhood in the north of Tyre,[3][4][5][6][7] Phoenician inscriptions discovered by the French archaeologist Maurice Dunand in Sidon in 1965,[8] and the systematic study of Sidonian coins.

The Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II (883–859 BC) conquered the Lebanon mountain range and its coastal cities, including Sidon.

According to Elayi, Eshmunazar was a usurper since, unlike the customs of the Phoenician royalty, the name of his father is not mentioned in any of the royal inscriptions.