Ur (Tell el-Muqayyar)

History: Ur (Tell el-Muqayyar)

Ur, at Tell el-Muqayyar about 16 kilometres south-west of Nasiriyah, was one of the great Sumerian city-states. Its patron was the moon god Nanna, and its great ziggurat was built under King Ur-Nammu around 2047–2030 BC, whose law code is among the oldest known. The city once stood near the coast of the Persian Gulf; the shoreline has since moved, leaving the ruins well inland on the Euphrates.

Genesis names "Ur of the Chaldees" as the home of Abram's family before they set out for Haran (Genesis 11:27–31; 15:7). This Ur is possibly the biblical city, but the identification is not certain: other traditions and scholars have proposed sites such as Şanlıurfa or Urkesh, and the Chaldeans were not present in the region until long after the period in which Abraham is traditionally placed. Pope John Paul II hoped to visit Ur in 2000, but the visit was cancelled; Pope Francis visited in March 2021.

An interesting detail

Excavators of the 1920s read a thick layer of silt at Ur as evidence of the biblical Flood; later dating showed similar layers in different cities came from different times.