Locating Biblical Ur

Alice C. Linsley

The ancient rulers named in Genesis controlled vast territories along major river routes. This was true for Terah, Abraham's father who was a descendant of Nimrod, the son of Kush (Gen. 10: 8).

The map shows Terah's territory which extended from Haran [1] in southern Turkey to biblical Ur [2] in southern Iraq. The marker at the midpoint between Haran and Ur shows that Terah's route between his two wives corresponded to the Euphrates River and its lakes. In Terah's day the rivers and lakes were larger.

The location of biblical Ur has been the subject of interest through the centuries. St. Jerome suggests that Ur may represent a religious practice rather than a place. He wrote, "...in the Hebrew it has 'in ur Chesdim,' that is, 'in the fire of the Chaldeans.' Moreover the Hebrews, taking the opportunity afforded by this verse, hand on a story of this sort to the effect that Abraham was put into the fire because he refused to worship the fire, which the Chaldeans honor, and that he escaped through God's help and fled from the fire of idolatry."[3]

Here St. Jerome refers to a legendary episode based on midrash in which Abraham was thrown into the fire by order of King Nimrod. The legend is as anacronistic as the citing of Ur as a Chaldean population center in the time of Terah. Ur could not have been "of the Chaldeans" prior to the Neo-Babylonian empire in the seventh century B.C.

Josephus and Rabbi Maimonides believed that Ur Kaśdim was in Northern Mesopotamia, in what is today Syria or Turkey. Following their idea, various sites have been proposed as biblical Ur. One site is Urkish in modern Syria (37° 3′ 25″ N, 40° 59′ 50″ E37.056944, 40.997222 ). There are two problems with this location. First, Afro-Asiatic chiefs established their territories along waterways which they controlled, but there was no waterway running between Harran and Urkish. Second, as Urkish is almost directly east of Harran, this would mean that Terah set his two wives on an east-west axis, which is unlikely.[4]

Another site that has been proposed is Urartu. This is impossible since it isn't a specific site but a region of Armenia near Lake Van. The placement of wives in separate settlements, each with their own shrines, requires a specific site.

The third location is Urfa in modern Turkey (37° 9′ 0″ N, 38° 48′ 0″ E37.15, 38.8). This site is more likely than either of the first two proposed because it is about 40 miles north of Harran. This would mean that Terah's two wives were properly placed on a north-south axis. However, this indicates that Terah's territory was much smaller than seems likely. (Terah is the great Patriarch from whom all the principal figures of biblical history are descended.) Another problem is that the route between Harran and Urfa does not correspond to a waterway.

The most likely site is that proposed by the British archaeologist Charles Woolley in 1927. He identified biblical Ur Kaśdim with the Sumerian city of Ur in southern Mesopotamia, situated east of the present Euphrates river in Iraq (see map above). This site is the most likely as it fits the pattern of Afro-Asiatic chiefs maintaining their wives on a north-south axis corresponding to waterways. If this is biblical Ur, we must conclude that Terah was a very great chief indeed. His territory would have extended along the Euphrates River for about 800 miles. This explains why Terah's descendents - Nahor, Abraham, Lot, Isaac, Jacob, Esau and Joktan - were recognized as great chiefs also.

There is a tendency to think that people in Abraham's time didn't travel widely, but the Genesis material suggests that rulers traveled the length and breadth of their territories. Terah traveled between his 2 wives, one in Haran and the other in Ur, a distance of at least 730 miles. Abraham traveled about this distance from Haran to the shrine between Bethel and Ai, where he first settled in Canaan.

Abraham also set his wives on a north-south axis, with Sarah in Hebron and Keturah in Beersheba. This means that Abraham's territory corresponded to a system of rivers, lakes and wells as did the territory of his father and his ancestors Noah and Nok.


NOTES

1. Haran means "crossroads" and suggests the existence of a shrine in the time of Terah.

2. Ur means "fire" and it appears in many place names in the area shown on the map. It probably refers to the fire altars that were common throughout the Afro-Asiatic Dominion. Archaeological evidence of such altars has been found in the Indus Valley culture dating from the proto-Harappan age (3500 BC- 2500 BC) to the Harappan age (2500 BC - 1750 BC). There was probably a fire altar in Jerusalem (a Jebusite city) in the time of Melchizedek. David built a fire altar at the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. Elijah's offering, and Jezebel's false prophets, were consumed by fire from heaven on a fire altar.

3. Read the text of Jerome's comment here.

4. The wives maintained separate households on a north-south axis. Their households marked the northern and southern boundaries of the chief’s territory. Sarah, Abraham’s sister bride, resided in Hebron and Keturah, Abraham’s cousin bride, resided in Beersheba, to the south. The wives were placed on a north-south axis rather than on an east-west axis because these chiefs did not presume to set themselves up as God, whose solar emblem moves from east to west.