* Tbg rcKdlng -i;^K Instead of I5<N In adopted liy Ewold. KlcMtermaiin, Prince, Driver, Uarti 1' probtbly '\,ttal.
836 UR OF THE CHALDEES
UR OF THE CHALDEES
and because of the passage in Ac V- *, where the proto-martyr, St. Stephen, places it m Mesopo- tamia, many have 8upi>osed it to be identical with Urfa or Orfa, which the Greeks named Odessa. The origin of tliis city is attributed by Isidore to Nembroth or Nimrod, which opinion is confarnied by Ephraem. who stales that Nimrod ruled at Arach and Edessa (Comm. in Genesim). I'rom Isidore's reference to Moi-i-ou 'Oppa, which Vaux ex- plains as ' evidently the Orrlia of Mannus, wlio was one of the kings of Edessa,' the ancient name of the place has been described as Orrha, the like- ness of which to Ur is evident. As however, this name would seem not to be provab e before B.C. 150 it is doubtful whether it can be (juoted m support of the identification of Edessa with so old a site as Ur of the Chaldees. Indeed, according to Appian, the town itself was comparatively modern, having been buUt by Seleucus. lesti- niony to the firm belief of the Mohammedans that Urfa is the ancient Ur of the Chaldees is to be found in the fact that the chief mosque there bears the name of the 'Mosque of Abraham, whilst the pond in which the sacred hsh are kept is called ' the lake of Abraham the Beloved.
Another tradition, which is at the same time also the received opinion of scholars at the present time, is that Ur of the Chaldees is the modern Mugheir, or, more correctly, Mukayyar, 'the pitchy, so called from the bitumen used in the construction of the principal building on the site The original name of this place was Uru, and as it lies in b. baby- lonia, anciently called (though not by the native inhabitants) Clialda-a, such an identihcation would leave but little to be desired. It is contained in a tradition quoted by Eusebius from Eupolemus, who lived about B.C. 150, to the eilect that, tenth in generation and thirteenth in descent, there Uvea in the city of Babylonia called Camarine (Ko/ioplvT,), which is called by some the city Urie (Oi'.p'l). a man named Abraham, of noble race, and .superior to aU others in wisdom. As Eupolemus occupied himself esi.ecially with Jewish history, there is hardly any doubt that what he says was the common opinion of the Jews at the time. That the place be refers to is that now represented by Mugheir is proved by the fact that its later name, Camanne (perhaps Aramaic), is evidently connected with the Arabic name for the moon, kamar, and that the city anciently occupying the site is now known to have been the great centre of Babylonian moon- worship. The statement that it was in his time called by some Urie is signilicant, as it suggests that the ancient name was going out of use.
The position of this city is close to the point where the Shatt al-Hai enters the Euphrates, about 125 miles N.W. of the Persian Gulf. Babylonian lists of wooden objects refer to a class of ship called Urite, suggesting that it was anciently not bo far from the sea, its present inland position being to all appearance caused by the alluvial deposits at the head of the Gulf. The ruins cover an oval space, 1000 yards long by 800 wide, and consist of a number of low mounds within an enclosure, i lie principal ruin is near the northern end, and is evidently the remains of a tower in stages, such as many of the cities of Babylonia and Assyria anciently possessed, and similar to the Birs-Nimroud (.reneraliy regarded as the tower of Babel) and the temple of Befus at Babylon (which Nebuchadnezzar calls ' the tower of Babylon '). From the bricks of this building we obtain indications of its history, among the kings who restored it being Ur-Engur, Dungi his son (about B.C. 2700), Kudur-mabug and his son Arad-Sin (or Eri-Aku = AllIOCH), and Nftr- Addi ; whilst other names found in connexion with tliis or other ruins on the site are, En-anna-duma, BOi-Sin, Ism6-Dagau and his son Gungunu, Kim-
Sin (probably the same as Arad-Sin or En-Aku), Sin-idiimam of Larsa, and Kuri-galzu son of Bur- naburias. The principal ruin, which was, as has been already said, the great temple-tower of the place, was apparently ' tlie supreme great temple (« qala maha), called, to all appearance, E-su-gana- dudu. Natonidus, in the inscription on the four beautiful cylinders found at the four corners of thisedihce, tells us that he restored it, and in doing so seemingly came across the records of Ur-Engur, and Dungi his son, whom he apparently regards as its founders. From this inscription we gather that the tower bore also the names of fi-lugal-gaga- sisa and fi-gis-sir-gala. South of the teinple-tow;er of Nannara was Ihe^temple of the goddess Nm- gala, and south-east E-gipara, ' the temple of the fadyof the gods.' Like other renowned cities m Babylonia, it was one of the sacred places to whicli the dead were taken for burial, and is comidetely surrounded by graves. In the time of Ur-Engur and his successors, it was the capital of the district, and an exceedingly important place, many of the smaller States around being subject to it. llie possession of important shrines naturally added to its influence, and Peters states that from the amount of slag found there it must have been also one of the principal manufacturing centres of the district in which it lies. Many scholars are of opinion that proof of the identity of Ur of the Chaldees with tliis site lies in the fact that Haran, to which city Terah and his family nu- CTated, was also a centre of moon-god worship, whilst the sacred mountain of the Jews, Sinai, being so named after Sin, the moon-god, is a further conHrmation. This, however, is a pomt which may well be left undecided, as it is by no means certain that Terah and his family were