This would seem to be evidence in support of the documentary htpothesis.
The camels or Ur?
If Ur probably not as Josephus and other historians in his time and after put Ur in the northern Mesopotamia. Where some thought Ur was in the south did not occur until much later.
Lower Mesopotamia[edit]
Eusebius in his
Preparation for the Gospel[11] preserves a fragment of the work
Concerning the Jews by the 1st century BCE historian Alexander Polyhistor, which in turn quotes a passage in
Concerning the Jews of Assyria by the 2nd century BCE historian Eupolemus, which 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 as
Pseudo-Eupolemus.) This site is identified by modern scholars with the Sumerian city of Ur located at Tell el-Mukayyar, which in ancient texts was named
Uriwa or
Urima.
Woolley's identification of Ur[edit]
In 1927 Leonard Woolley identified Ur Kaśdim with the Sumerian city of Ur (founded c. 3800 BCE), in southern Mesopotamia, where the Chaldeans settled much later (around the 9th century BCE);[12] Ur lay on the boundary of the region later called
Kaldu (Chaldea, corresponding to Hebrew
Kaśdim) in the first millennium BCE. It was the sacred city of the 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 father Terah is related to the Hebrew root for moon (
y-r-h).
Woolley's identification became the mainstream scholarly opinion on the location of Biblical Ur Kasdim, despite the earlier traditions that Ur Kasdim should lie in Assyria in Northern Mesopotamia.[13] Woolley's identification was challenged with the discovery of the Assyrian city of Harran in northern Mesopotamia, near the present-day village of Altınbaşak in modern Turkey (archaeological excavations at Harran began in the 1950s).
Recent archaeological work focuses on the area of Nasiriyah (in southern Iraq), where the remains of the ancient Ziggurat of Ur stand.[14][15][5]
Identification with Uruk[edit]
According to T.G. Pinches[16] and A.T. Clay,[17][18] some Talmudic and medieval Arabic writers identified Ur of the Chaldees with the Sumerian city of Uruk, called
Erech in the Bible and
Warka in Arabic. Both scholars reject the equation. Talmud
Yoma 10a identifies Erech with a place called "Urichus",[19] and no tradition exists equating Ur Kaśdim with Urichus or Erech/Uruk.
Upper Mesopotamia[edit]
Jewish scholarship identifies Abraham's birthplace as somewhere in Upper Mesopotamia. This view was particularly noted by Nachmanides (Ramban).[20] Nevertheless, this interpretation of
moledet as meaning "birthplace" is not universal. Many Pentateuchal translations, from the Septuagint to some modern English versions, render
moledet as "kindred" or "family".
Writing in the 4th century CE, Ammianus Marcellinus in his
Rerum Gestarum Libri (chapter VIII) mentions a castle named Ur which lay between Hatra and Nisibis. A. T. Clay understood this as an identification of Ur Kaśdim, although Marcellinus makes no explicit claim in this regard. In her
Travels (chapter XX), Egeria, recording travels dated to the early 380s CE, mentions
Hur lying five stations from Nisibis on the way to Persia, apparently the same location, and she does identify it with Ur Kaśdim. However, the castle in question was only founded during the time of the second Persian Empire (224-651).
Tradition of Sanliurfa[edit]
Another possible location for Ur of the Chaldees (Ur Kasdim) is the ancient Assyrian and Seleucid city Edessa, now called Şanlıurfa. According to some Jewish traditions, this is the site where Abraham was cast into a furnace by Nimrod as punishment for his monotheistic beliefs, but miraculously escaped unscathed. [21]
The Turkish name for the city,
Urfa, is derived from the earlier Syriac ܐܘܪܗܝ (Orhāy) and Greek Ορρα (Orrha), the city being a major centre of Assyrian-Syriac Christianity.[21]
Islamic tradition holds that the site of Abraham's birth is a cave situated near the center of Şanlıurfa. The Halil-Ur Rahman Mosque lies in the vicinity of the cave.[22][23]
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. [24]
Urkesh[edit]
According to A.S. Issar, Ur Kasdim is identified with the site of Urkesh – 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 reach Canaan is much more reasonable than a travel from the Sumerian city of Ur.[13]
Ur of the Chaldees - Wikipedia
Ur of the Chaldees
UR OF THE CHALDEES (א֥וּר כַּשְׂדִּֽים, Gr. χῶρα (τῶν) Χαλδάιον). City in Mesopotamia from which Abraham migrated to Haran (Gen 11:28, 31; 15:7; Neh 9:7).
1. Name and location. Until 1850, “Ur of the Chaldees” was considered to be Urfa, near Haran, S. Turkey, where there is a local tradition of Abraham’s residence to which he sent in search for a wife for Isaac (Gen 24:1-10) from the “land of his nativity.” This view has been recently revived by Cyrus H. Gordon, who interprets the OT as implying a northern tradition (he places it at Ura’ near Harran) and that Abraham was a merchant prince. He considers that the term “Chaldee” can be adequately explained as a reference to N Mesopotamia (as he thinks is meant by Isa 23:13). Against this it must be noted that any tradition of Abraham at Urfa/Edessa goes back only to the 8th-9th cent. a.d. The OT scarcely implies that Abraham was a merchant or that he moved only a short distance from Ur to Haran. Moreover “the land of my nativity” (Gen 24:7) could equally be tr. “land of my kindred.” There are also several places called Ura’, one a seaport in Cilicia, another a Hitt. fortress in NE Anatolia.
In favor of a more southerly location can be cited local tradition which is strong, linking Abraham both with Warka (Erech) and Kutha (Tell Ibrahīm) and, by Eusebius (on Eupolemus c. 100 b.c.) with Kamerina (“the moon-city”) of Babylonia, called by some the city Urie. By 1866 the name
U-ri was read on several buildings and other inscrs. from the site of Tell el-Muqayyar in S Iraq, 6 m. SE of Nasiriyah on the Euphrates River. This ancient city of Ur certainly lay in territory called Kaldu (Chaldaea) from the early first millennium b.c. Since this area was normally named after the tribes living there, and no earlier general name for the area is known, it would be unscientific to call the reference to Ur “of the Chaldees” in the second millennium an anachronism. The southern identification for the Biblical Ur is followed here.
2. Excavations. In 1853-1854 J. E. Taylor, British Vice-Consul at Basra was asked by the British Museum to investigate the site of “Múgeyer.” He explored the ziggurrat and vicinity. A few soundings were made by R. C. Thompson in 1918 and shortly afterward by H. R. Hall who, however, concentrated on al ’Ubaid, 4 m. to NW, where he found a circular oval with a decorated temple of Ninhursag in use from prehistoric (’Ubaid) levels (c. 4000 b.c.) until the third dynasty of Ur (2113-2066). From 1922-1934 a joint expedition of the British Museum and University Museum of Pennsylvania led by (Sir) C. L. Woolley excavated large areas of the site which measured 1,200 x 675 meters and housed an estimated population of c. 34,000, possibly representing a quarter of a million persons in the whole of the Greater Ur district.
a. Ziggurat. The three-staged step pyramid tower built by Ur-Nammu (2113-2096) and remodeled by Nabonidus (556-539 b.c.) dominated the city. This massive structure of burnt-brick skin over a mud brick core of 200 x 150 ft. originally stood to a height of 70 ft. above the plain, though only 50 ft. of the lowest platform now remains. There is some evidence that the different stages were each colored differently below the silver one-roomed shrine of Nannar, the mood-god, at the top. The terraces were planted with trees. Identification of the ziggurat of Ur by name, and of the work of restoration by Nabonidus are provided by foundation deposits found at the corners of the building. Close by the ziggurat, which rose from an inner court, is found a shrine of Ningal and, in the angle formed by the main stairway leading up into the ziggurat, two small chapels. Around the wall were associated kitchens. A single gateway (
Edublalmah) led into the sacred area with its open-air altar and large storehouse for receiving offerings. On this temenos was a temple for Ningal (Enumah), a palace of Amar-Su’en and further to the SE Ehursag, the palace of Ur-Nammu and Shulgi. The whole complex was divided from the town by a wall last rebuilt by Nebuchadrezzar II.
b. Royal cemetery. An outstanding discovery were the tombs of the rulers of the brilliant Early Dynastic III period c. 2500 near and below the mausoleum of kings Shulgi and Amar-Su’en. The finest equipped of the sixteen graves were those of Meskalamshar and his “queen” Pū-Abi (Shubad) and of the founder of the first dynasty Mesannipada and his son A’annipada who are known to be contemporary with the early kings of Mari. The ritual of burial included human sacrifice whereby from six to eighty retainers accompanied the deceased to the tomb where they too were killed, prob. by poisoning or suffocation. Objects of gold, silver, precious stones, wood, ivory and shell with lapis-lazuli mosaic inlay were found in abundance and testify to the wealth of this early time. They include chariots, sledges, standards, musical instruments, weapons and vessels, gaming-boards and much personal jewelry. An outlying cemetery at Diqdiqqeh yielded grave goods of a later period.
c. Flood level. In a deep sounding to virgin soil in Pit F (and at other check points) Woolley met at 4.50 m. above sea level a stratum of clean, water-laid sand more than 3 m. deep which he considered to have been laid in two subsequent stages and to date to the end of the ’Ubaid period c. 3500 b.c. He linked this with the Flood of Genesis and of the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh. Though some take this as proof of these events (
see Flood (Genesis)) the archeological evidence here does not necessarily warrant this interpretation. The Flood layer seems to have been an accumulation of debris and is not strictly paralleled by the similar layers found at other sites which may be more closely related to the classical event, e.g. Kish and Shurrupak c. 2500 b.c. No flood level is known from Eridu, twelve m. to the SW.
d. Private houses. A quarter of the city occupied during the Isin-Larsa period was cleared to show the layout of thickly populated private houses. From many tablets discovered the activity of the market and seaport sections of the city can be reconstructed. Trade was carried on over a wide area by merchants including sea-borne traffic with India and Africa via the Persian Gulf from a canal-basin harbor.
3. History. Ur was a flourishing city in Sumer. times, dominating S Babylonia and sometimes farther afield, after a period of eclipse after the Gutian infiltration (2150-2070) which itself followed a time when Ur was overshadowed by the strong Sem. dynasty of III Agade to the N (2350-2150 b.c.). The Ur Dynasty founded by Ur-Nammu saw a revival of Sumer. prosperity and the extension of Ur’s influence once again to Syria and N Mesopotamia which continued during the reigns of his successors, Shulgi and Amar-Su’en. When the Amorites overran the S, Hammurabi (1792-1750 b.c.) controlled Ur for a time, but when it rebelled against his son it was sacked. Ur’s importance as a religious center insured that it was never abandoned for long, and later kings Kurigalzu II (1345-1324) and Marduk-nadin-aḫḫe (1098-1081) kept it in repair as did Nebuchadrezzar II and Nabonidus (550-539 b.c.). The latter rebuilt the ziggurat and other shrines before installing his daughter, Bel-shalṭi-Nannar as highpriestess in her own new palace. Cyrus paid reverent attention to the shrines but after the 4th cent. the city fell into decline with the diversion of the Euphrates River and the silting up of the canal system.
Bibliography C. L. Woolley,
Excavations at Ur (1954); C. H. Gordon, “Abraham and the Merchants of Ura,” JNES XVII (1958), 28-31; H. W. F. Saggs, “Ur of the Chaldees,”
Iraq XXII (1960), 200-209; M. E. L. Mallowan and D. J. Wiseman,
Ur in Retrospect (1960); M. E. L. Mallowan, “The Development of Cities,” CAH rev. ed. I (1967), 29, 30; C. J. Gadd, “Ur,”
Archaeology and Old Testament Study (1967), 87-101.
Ur of the Chaldees - Encyclopedia of The Bible - Bible Gateway
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