Ur Kasdim (Hebrew:אוּר כַּשְׂדִּים,romanized: ʾŪr Kaśdīm), commonly translated asUr of the Chaldees, is a city mentioned in theHebrew Bible as the birthplace ofAbraham, thepatriarch of theIsraelites and theIshmaelites. In 1862,Henry Rawlinson identified Ur Kaśdim withTell el-Muqayyar (Ur) nearNasiriyah in theBaghdad Eyalet ofOttoman Iraq.[1] In 1927,Leonard Woolley excavated the site and identified it as aSumerian archaeological site where theChaldeans were to settle around the 9th century BC.[2] Recent archaeology work has continued to focus on the location inNasiriyah, where the ancientZiggurat of Ur is located.[3][4][5][6][7][8]
Other sites traditionally thought to be Abraham's birthplace are in the vicinity of the city ofEdessa (nowUrfa in theSoutheastern Anatolia Region of Turkey).[9]
Ur Kaśdim is mentioned four times in theHebrew Bible, in theBook of Genesis (Genesis 11:28,Genesis 11:31,Genesis 15:7), and theBook of Nehemiah (Nehemiah 9:7).
The distinction "Kaśdim" is usually rendered in English as "of the Chaldees." InGenesis, the name is found in 11:28, 11:31 and 15:7. Although not explicitly stated in theTanakh, it is generally understood to be the birthplace of Abraham (although some commentators likeNahmanides understand that Abraham was born inHaran, but later migrated to Ur[10]).Genesis 11:27–28 names it as the death place of Abraham's brotherHaran, and the point of departure ofTerah's household, including his son Abraham.
InGenesis 12:1, after Abraham and his father Terah have left Ur Kaśdim for the city ofHaran (probablyHarran), and God instructs Abraham to leave his native land (Hebrewmoledet). The traditional Jewish understanding of the wordmoledet is "birthplace" (e.g. in theJudaica Press translation). Similarly, in Genesis 24:4–10, Abraham instructs his servant to bring a wife forIsaac from hismoledet, and the servant departs for Haran.
TheSeptuagint translation of Genesis does not include the term "Ur"; instead it describes the "Land of the Chaldees" (Greekχώρα Χαλδαίων,Chora Chaldaion). Some scholars have held that biblical Ur was not a city at all, but simply a word for land.[11]
TheBook of Jubilees states that Ur was founded in 1688Anno Mundi (year of the world) by 'Ur son of Kesed", presumably the offspring ofArpachshad, adding that in this same year wars began on Earth. "And ’Ûr, the son of Kêsêd, built the city of ’Arâ of the Chaldees, and called its name after his own name and the name of his father." (Jubilees 11:3).[12]
In theNew Testament,Saint Stephen refers to it as the "land of the Chaldeans" when he retells the story of Abraham inActs 7 (Acts 7:4).
According to Islamic texts, Abraham (Ibrahim in Arabic) was thrown into the fire. In the story, the temperature of the king's fire was reduced by God, saving the life of Ibrahim. While theQuran does not mention the king's name, Muslim commentators have assignedNimrod as the king based onhadiths.
Eusebius in hisPreparation for the Gospel[13] preserves a fragment of the workConcerning the Jews by the 1st century BC historianAlexander Polyhistor, which in turn quotes a passage inConcerning the Jews of Assyria by the 2nd century BC historianEupolemus. The passage claimed that Abraham was born in the Babylonian city Camarina, which it notes was also called "Uria". (Such indirect quotations of Eupolemus via Polyhistor are referred to asPseudo-Eupolemus.) This site is identified by modern scholars with theSumerian city ofUr located at Tell el-Mukayyar, which in ancient texts was namedUriwa orUrima.
In 1927Leonard Woolley identified Ur Kaśdim with theSumerian city ofUr (foundedc. 3800 BC), in southernMesopotamia, where the Chaldeans settled much later (around the 9th century BC);[2] Ur lay on the boundary of the region later calledKaldu (Chaldea, corresponding to HebrewKaśdim) in the first millennium BCE. It was the sacred city ofthe moon god and the name "Camarina" is thought to be related to the much later appearing Arabic word for "moon":qamar. The identification of Sumerian Ur with Ur Kaśdim accords with the view that Abraham's ancestors may have been moon-worshippers, an idea based on the possibility that the name of Abraham's fatherTerah is related to the Hebrew root for moon (y-r-h).
Woolley's identification has become the mainstream scholarly opinion on the location of Biblical Ur Kasdim, in line with some earlier traditions that placed Ur Kasdim in Southern Mesopotamia.[14] Woolley's identification was challenged with the discovery of the city ofHarran innorthern Mesopotamia, near the present-day village ofAltınbaşak in modern Turkey (archaeological excavations at Harran began in the 1950s).
Recent archaeological work focuses on the area ofNasiriyah (in southern Iraq), where the remains of the ancientZiggurat of Ur stand.[15][16][5]
According toT.G. Pinches[17] andA.T. Clay,[18] some Talmudic and medieval Arabic writers identified Ur of the Chaldees with theSumerian city ofUruk, calledErech in the Bible andWarka in Arabic. Both scholars reject the equation. TalmudYoma 10a identifies Erech with a place called "Urichus",[19] and no tradition exists equating Ur Kaśdim with Urichus or Erech/Uruk.
Some Jewish traditions identify Abraham's birthplace as somewhere inUpper Mesopotamia. This view was particularly noted byNachmanides (Ramban).[20] Nevertheless, this interpretation ofmoledet as meaning "birthplace" is not universal. ManyPentateuchal translations, from theSeptuagint to some modern English versions, rendermoledet as "kindred" or "family".
Writing in the 4th century AD,Ammianus Marcellinus in hisRerum Gestarum Libri mentions a castle named Ur which lay betweenHatra andNisibis.[21] A. T. Clay understood this as an identification of Ur Kaśdim, although Marcellinus makes no explicit claim in this regard. In herTravels,Egeria, recording travels dated to the early 380s AD, mentionsHur lying five stations from Nisibis on the way to Persia, apparently the same location, and she does identify it with Ur Kaśdim.[22] However, the castle in question was only founded during the time of thesecond Persian Empire (224–651).
Since Upper Mesopotamia included northern Syria, which was inhabited by groups like the Amorites, some even consider Abraham to be among the Amorites that migrated to the Levant. Like Abraham and his descendants, the Amorites followed shepherding-based lifestyles. Nonetheless, the Biblical authors distanced themselves from the Amorites to assert their moral superiority.[23]
Another possible location for Ur of the Chaldees (Ur Kasdim) is the ancientAssyrian andSeleucid cityEdessa, now calledŞanlıurfa. According to some Jewish traditions, this is the site whereAbraham was cast into a furnace byNimrod as punishment for his monotheistic beliefs, but miraculously escaped unscathed.[24]
The Turkish name for the city,Urfa, is derived from the earlierSyriac ܐܘܪܗܝ (Orhāy) andGreekΟρρα (Orrha), the city being a major centre of Assyrian-Syriac Christianity.[24]
Islamic tradition holds that the site of Abraham's birth is a cave situated near the center of Şanlıurfa. TheHalil-Ur Rahman Mosque lies in the vicinity of the cave.[25][26]
Gary A. Rendsburg points out that this location makes better sense of the Biblical references, especially that if Teraḥ and family left Ur-Kasdim to travel to Canaan, but stopped en route in Ḥarran, then the location of Ur-Kasdim should be to the north of Ḥarran.[27] In addition, Abraham's grandfatherNahor and great-grandfatherSerug share names with cities located near Ḥarran in northern Mesopotamia ("Til-Nahiri" andSuruç), suggesting that Abraham's clan was well established in this area in the period before the migration from Ur-Kasdim.[28]
According to A. S. Issar, Ur Kasdim is identified with the site ofUrkesh – the capital of the Hurrian Kingdom, now in northeastern Syria. It is further hypothesized that the Biblical travel of Abraham's kin from Urkesh to Harran in order to reachCanaan is much more reasonable than a travel from the Sumerian city of Ur.[29]
The biblical Ur is mentioned four times in theTorah orHebrew Bible, with the distinction "of the Kasdim"—traditionally rendered in English as "Ur of the Chaldees". TheChaldeans had settled in the vicinity of Ur in Lower Mesopotamia by around 850 BC, but were not extant anywhere in Mesopotamia during the 2nd millennium BC period when Abraham is traditionally held to have lived. The Chaldean dynasty did not rule Babylonia (and thus become the rulers of Ur) until the late 7th century BC, and held power only until the mid 6th century BC. The name is found inGenesis 11:28,Genesis 11:31, andGenesis 15:7. InNehemiah 9:7, a single passage mentioning Ur is a paraphrase ofGenesis.[citation needed]
The dig began last month when the six-member British team worked with four Iraqi archaeologists to dig in the Tell Khaiber in the southernprovince of Thi Qar, some 200 miles (320 kilometers) south of Baghdad.
Through joint efforts of the U.S.-based Global Heritage Fund, the Iraq Ministry of Culture, State Board of Antiquities and Heritage, and the Dhiqar Antiquities Office, what remains of Ur will be systematically restored and stabilized and a plan established to breathe new life into tourism and the local community. It will also build a foundation for future archaeologists to again resume serious research and investigation of this seminal site. [...] In 2009, an agreement was established for joint archaeological research and excavations by the University of Pennsylvania and the Government of Iraq.
