DEDAN (DADAN) and DEDANIM. - The name of a locality and of a tribe. The latter is numbered by Gen. 10, 7 together with the Sabaeans among the descendants of Chus (Ethiopians) beyond the Red Sea; on another occasion it is mentioned together with the Midianites (Gen. 35, 3), whose territory lay to the north of the Higaz.
The D. are mentioned in Is. 21, 13; Ier. 25, 23; Ez. 38, 13; 25, 13 and Ier. 49, 8. These latter two texts regard D. Edom (v.); it would be an oasis corresponding to the position of that called el-'Olà. A Minaean inscription shows that at el-'Olà there was a temple sacred to the god Wadd. According to Ez. 27, 15, 20 the D. maintained commercial relations with Tyre.
BIBL.: F. Hommel, Grundriss der Geogr. u. Geschichte des Alten Orients, 2nd ed., Munich 1926 (v. index); A. Janssen-R. Savignac, Mission archéologique en Arabie, II, Paris 1914, p. 29 ff.; M. Lidzbarski, Ephemeris, III, Giessen 1915, p. 273. Eugenio Zolli