Ur Kasdim ( he, ''ʾūr Kaśdīm''), commonly translated as Ur of the Chaldeans, is a city mentioned in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' Abraham Abraham, ; ar, , , name=, group= (originally Abram) is the common Hebrew patriarch of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Judaism, he is the founding father of the special relationship between the Je ...

. In 1862, Henry Rawlinson identified Ur Kaśdim with Tell el-Muqayyar, near Nasiriyah in southern

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...

. In 1927, Leonard Woolley excavated the site and identified it as a Sumerian archaeological site where the Chaldeans were to settle around the 9th century BC. Recent archaeology work has continued to focus on the location in Nasiriyah, where the ancient

Ziggurat of Ur The Ziggurat (or Great Ziggurat) of Ur ( Sumerian: "Etemenniguru", meaning "temple whose foundation creates aura") is a Neo-Sumerian ziggurat in what was the city of Ur near Nasiriyah, in present-day Dhi Qar Province, Iraq. The structure ...

is located. Other sites traditionally thought to be Abraham's birthplace are in the vicinity of the city of Edessa (

Şanlıurfa Urfa, officially known as Şanlıurfa () and in ancient times as Edessa, is a city in southeastern Turkey and the capital of Şanlıurfa Province. Urfa is situated on a plain about 80 km east of the Euphrates River. Its climate features ...

in modern south eastern

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...

). Traditional Jewish and Muslim authorities, such as

Maimonides Musa ibn Maimon (1138–1204), commonly known as Maimonides (); la, Moses Maimonides and also referred to by the acronym Rambam ( he, רמב״ם), was a Sephardic Jewish philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Tora ...

and

Josephus Flavius Josephus (; grc-gre, Ἰώσηπος, ; 37 – 100) was a first-century Romano-Jewish historian and military leader, best known for '' The Jewish War'', who was born in Jerusalem—then part of Roman Judea—to a father of priestly ...

, placed Ur Kaśdim at various

Upper Mesopotamia Upper Mesopotamia is the name used for the uplands and great outwash plain of northwestern Iraq, northeastern Syria and southeastern Turkey, in the northern Middle East. Since the early Muslim conquests of the mid-7th century, the region has been ...

n or at other southeast Anatolian sites such as

Urkesh Urkesh or Urkish ( Akkadian: 𒌨𒆧𒆠 UR.KIŠKI, 𒌨𒋙𒀭𒄲𒆠 UR.KEŠ3KI; modern Tell Mozan; ar, تل موزان) is a tell, or settlement mound, located in the foothills of the Taurus Mountains in Al-Hasakah Governorate, northeaster ...

Urartu Urartu (; Assyrian: ',Eberhard Schrader, ''The Cuneiform inscriptions and the Old Testament'' (1885), p. 65. Babylonian: ''Urashtu'', he, אֲרָרָט ''Ararat'') is a geographical region and Iron Age kingdom also known as the Kingdom of V ...

Urfa Urfa, officially known as Şanlıurfa () and in ancient times as Edessa, is a city in southeastern Turkey and the capital of Şanlıurfa Province. Urfa is situated on a plain about 80 km east of the Euphrates River. Its climate features ex ...

, or

Kutha Kutha, Cuthah, Cuth or Cutha ( ar, كُوثَا, Sumerian: Gudua), modern Tell Ibrahim ( ar, تَلّ إِبْرَاهِيم), formerly known as Kutha Rabba ( ar, كُوثَىٰ رَبَّا), is an archaeological site in Babil Governorate, Iraq. ...

In tradition

Bible

Ur Kaśdim is mentioned four times in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' Book of Genesis The Book of Genesis (from Greek ; Hebrew: בְּרֵאשִׁית ''Bəreʾšīt'', "In hebeginning") is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. Its Hebrew name is the same as its first word, ( "In the beginning" ...

(, , ), and the Book of Nehemiah (). The distinction "Kaśdim" is usually rendered in English as "of the Chaldees." In Genesis, the name is found in 11:28, 11:31 and 15:7. Although not explicitly stated in the

Tanakh The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' Haran, and the point of departure of

Terah Terah or Terach ( he, תֶּרַח ''Teraḥ'') is a biblical figure in the Book of Genesis. He is listed as the son of Nahor and father of the patriarch Abraham. As such, he is a descendant of Shem's son Arpachshad. Terah is mentioned in Gen ...

's household, including his son Abraham. In Genesis 12:1, after Abraham and his father Terah have left Ur Kaśdim for the city of Haran (probably

Harran Harran (), historically known as Carrhae ( el, Kάρραι, Kárrhai), is a rural town and district of the Şanlıurfa Province in southeastern Turkey, approximately 40 kilometres (25 miles) southeast of Urfa and 20 kilometers from the border cr ...

), God instructs Abraham to leave his native land (Hebrew ''moledet''). The traditional Jewish understanding of the word ''moledet'' is "birthplace" (e.g. in th
Judaica Press translation
. Similarly, in Genesis 24:4–10, Abraham instructs his servant to bring a wife for

Isaac Isaac; grc, Ἰσαάκ, Isaák; ar, إسحٰق/إسحاق, Isḥāq; am, ይስሐቅ is one of the three patriarchs of the Israelites and an important figure in the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. He was th ...

from his ''moledet'', and the servant departs for Haran.

Septuagint

The

Septuagint The Greek Old Testament, or Septuagint (, ; from the la, septuaginta, lit=seventy; often abbreviated ''70''; in Roman numerals, LXX), is the earliest extant Greek translation of books from the Hebrew Bible. It includes several books beyond ...

translation of Genesis does not include the term "Ur"; instead it describes the "Land ( Chora) of the Chaldees". Some scholars have held that biblical Ur was not a city at all, but simply a word for land. The Septuagint Greek used the word Χαλδαίων, or Chaldaion, from which Chaldees is derived.

Jubilees

The ''

Book of Jubilees The Book of Jubilees, sometimes called Lesser Genesis (Leptogenesis), is an ancient Jewish religious work of 50 chapters (1,341 verses), considered canonical by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church as well as Beta Israel (Ethiopian Jews), where it is ...

'' states that Ur was founded in 1688 ''

Anno Mundi (from Latin "in the year of the world"; he, לבריאת העולם, Livryat haOlam, lit=to the creation of the world), abbreviated as AM or A.M., or Year After Creation, is a calendar era based on the biblical accounts of the creation o ...

'' (year of the world) by 'Ur son of Kesed, presumably the offspring of

Arphaxad Arpachshad ( he, אַרְפַּכְשַׁד – ''ʾArpaḵšaḏ'', in pausa – ''ʾArpaḵšāḏ''; gr, Ἀρφαξάδ – ''Arphaxád''), alternatively spelled Arphaxad or Arphacsad, is one of the postdiluvian men in the ShemTera ...

, adding that in this same year wars began on Earth.

''And 'Ur, the son of Kesed, built the city of 'Ara of the Chaldees, and called its name after his own name and the name of his father.'' (Jubilees 11:3).

New Testament

In the New Testament, it is described indirectly at

Acts 7 Acts 7 is the seventh chapter of the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. It records the address of Stephen before the Sanhedrin and his execution outside Jerusalem, and introduces Saul (who later became Paul the Apos ...

, as the "land of the Chaldeans".

Saint Stephen Stephen ( grc-gre, Στέφανος ''Stéphanos'', meaning "wreath, crown" and by extension "reward, honor, renown, fame", often given as a title rather than as a name; c. 5 – c. 34 AD) is traditionally venerated as the protomartyr or first ...

states that Ur-Kasidim was in Mesopotamia.

Islamic

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 the

Quran The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God. It is organized in 114 chapters (pl.: , s ...

does not mention the king's name, Muslim commentators have assigned

Nimrod Nimrod (; ; arc, ܢܡܪܘܕ; ar, نُمْرُود, Numrūd) is a biblical figure mentioned in the Book of Genesis and Books of Chronicles. The son of Cush and therefore a great-grandson of Noah, Nimrod was described as a king in the land of ...

as the king based on

hadith Ḥadīth ( or ; ar, حديث, , , , , , , literally "talk" or "discourse") or Athar ( ar, أثر, , literally "remnant"/"effect") refers to what the majority of Muslims believe to be a record of the words, actions, and the silent approva ...

Location

Lower Mesopotamia

Eusebius Eusebius of Caesarea (; grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος ; 260/265 – 30 May 339), also known as Eusebius Pamphilus (from the grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος τοῦ Παμφίλου), was a Greek historian of Christianity, exegete, and Chris ...

in his '' Preparation for the Gospel'' preserves a fragment of the work ''Concerning the Jews'' by the 1st century BC historian

Alexander Polyhistor Lucius Cornelius Alexander Polyhistor ( grc, Ἀλέξανδρος ὁ Πολυΐστωρ; flourished in the first half of the 1st century BC; also called Alexander of Miletus) was a Greek scholar who was enslaved by the Romans during the Mithri ...

, which in turn quotes a passage in ''Concerning the Jews of Assyria'' by the 2nd century BC historian

Eupolemus Eupolemus () is the earliest Hellenistic Jewish historian whose writing survives from Antiquity. Five (or possibly six) fragments of his work have been preserved in Eusebius of Caesarea's '' Praeparatio Evangelica'' (hereafter abbreviated as ''Pr ...

. 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 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

In 1927 Leonard Woolley identified Ur Kaśdim with the Sumerian city of Ur (founded 3800 BC), in southern

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the ...

, where the Chaldeans settled much later (around the 9th century BC); 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

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 Northern Mesopotamia. Woolley's identification was challenged with the discovery of the city of

northern Mesopotamia Upper Mesopotamia is the name used for the uplands and great outwash plain of northwestern Iraq, northeastern Syria and southeastern Turkey, in the northern Middle East. Since the early Muslim conquests of the mid-7th century, the region has been ...

, 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

stand.

Identification with Uruk

According to T.G. Pinches and A.T. Clay, some Talmudic and medieval Arabic writers identified Ur of the Chaldees with the Sumerian city of

Uruk Uruk, also known as Warka or Warkah, was an ancient city of Sumer (and later of Babylonia) situated east of the present bed of the Euphrates River on the dried-up ancient channel of the Euphrates east of modern Samawah, Al-Muthannā, Iraq.Harm ...

, called '' Erech'' in the Bible and ''Warka'' in Arabic. Both scholars reject the equation. Talmud ''Yoma'' 10a identifies Erech with a place called "Urichus", and no tradition exists equating Ur Kaśdim with Urichus or Erech/Uruk.

Upper Mesopotamia

Jewish scholarship identifies Abraham's birthplace as somewhere in

. This view was particularly noted by Nachmanides (Ramban). Nevertheless, this interpretation of ''moledet'' as meaning "birthplace" is not universal. Many Pentateuchal translations, from the

to some modern English versions, render ''moledet'' as "kindred" or "family". Writing in the 4th century AD,

Ammianus Marcellinus Ammianus Marcellinus (occasionally anglicised as Ammian) (born , died 400) was a Roman soldier and historian who wrote the penultimate major historical account surviving from antiquity (preceding Procopius). His work, known as the ''Res Gestae ...

in his ''Rerum Gestarum Libri''
chapter VIII
mentions a castle named Ur which lay between

Hatra Hatra ( ar, الحضر; syr, ‎ܚܛܪܐ) was an ancient city in Upper Mesopotamia located in present-day eastern Nineveh Governorate in northern Iraq. The city lies northwest of Baghdad and southwest of Mosul. Hatra was a strongly fortified ...

and

Nisibis Nusaybin (; '; ar, نُصَيْبِيْن, translit=Nuṣaybīn; syr, ܢܨܝܒܝܢ, translit=Nṣībīn), historically known as Nisibis () or Nesbin, is a city in Mardin Province, Turkey. The population of the city is 83,832 as of 2009 and is ...

. 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 AD, 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

Another possible location for Ur of the Chaldees (Ur Kasdim) is the ancient

Assyria Assyria ( Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , romanized: ''māt Aššur''; syc, ܐܬܘܪ, ʾāthor) was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization which existed as a city-state at times controlling regional territories in the indigenous lands of the ...

n and

Seleucid The Seleucid Empire (; grc, Βασιλεία τῶν Σελευκιδῶν, ''Basileía tōn Seleukidōn'') was a Greek state in West Asia that existed during the Hellenistic period from 312 BC to 63 BC. The Seleucid Empire was founded by the ...

city Edessa, now called

. According to some Jewish traditions, this is the site where

Abraham Abraham, ; ar, , , name=, group= (originally Abram) is the common Hebrew patriarch of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Judaism, he is the founding father of the special relationship between the Je ...

was cast into a furnace by

as punishment for his monotheistic beliefs, but miraculously escaped unscathed. The Turkish name for the city, ''Urfa'', is derived from the earlier

Syriac Syriac may refer to: *Syriac language, an ancient dialect of Middle Aramaic *Sureth, one of the modern dialects of Syriac spoken in the Nineveh Plains region * Syriac alphabet ** Syriac (Unicode block) ** Syriac Supplement * Neo-Aramaic languages a ...

ܐܘܪܗܝ ( Orhāy) and

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

(Orrha), the city being a major centre of Assyrian-Syriac Christianity. 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.

Rendsburg Rendsburg ( da, Rendsborg, also ''Rensborg'', nds, Rendsborg, also ''Rensborg'') is a town on the River Eider and the Kiel Canal in the central part of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is the capital of the ''Kreis'' (district) of Rendsburg-Ecke ...

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. In addition, Abraham's grandfather Nahor and great-grandfather

Serug Serug ( he, שְׂרוּג – ''Śərūḡ'', "branch"; gr, Σερούχ – ''Seroúkh'') was the son of Reu and the father of Nahor, according to Genesis 11:20–23. He is also the great-grandfather of Abraham, thus the ancestor of the Ish ...

share names with cities located near Ḥarran in northern Mesopotamia ("Til-Nahiri" and

Suruç Suruç (, ku, Pirsûs, script=Latn, ''Sruḡ'') is a rural district and city of Şanlıurfa Province of Turkey, on a plain near the Syrian border southwest of the city of Urfa. History In antiquity the Sumerians built a settlement in the area. ...

), suggesting that Abraham's clan was well established in this area in the period before the migration from Ur-Kasdim.Ran Tzadok, ''Olam HaTanakh: Breishit'' (Tel Aviv, 1993), p.87; Yaakov Medan, ''Ki Karov Elecha: Breishit'', p.181

Urkesh

According to A.S. Issar, Ur Kasdim is identified with the site of

– 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 Canaan (; Phoenician: 𐤊𐤍𐤏𐤍 – ; he, כְּנַעַן – , in pausa – ; grc-bib, Χανααν – ;The current scholarly edition of the Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus T ...

is much more reasonable than a travel from the Sumerian city of Ur.Issar, A.S. ''Strike the Rock and There Shall Come Water: Climate Changes, Water Resources and History of the Lands of the Bible'', p. 67. Springer. 2014.

References

External links

Biblical Archaeology Review May/June 2001: Where Was Abraham's Ur?
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190201212830/http://fontes.lstc.edu/~rklein/Documents/Ur.htm , date=2019-02-01 by Allan R. Millard
Prophet Abraham and Sanliurfa
Islamic traditions connecting Abraham's early life and Sanli Urfa. * Cyrus H. Gordon, ''Abraham and the Merchants of Ura'', Journal of Near Eastern Studies 17 (1958), pp. 28–31.
COJS: Royal Tombs of Ur, 2600-2500 BCEWoolley’s Ur Revisited, Richard L. Zettler, BAR 10:05, Sep/Oct 1984.
*
Ur of Chaldees
' by Sir Leonard Woolley Book of Genesis Book of Nehemiah Acts of the Apostles Hebrew Bible cities Noach (parashah) Lech-Lecha Ur Book of Jubilees