UR

Ancient city in southern Mesopotamia at a site now called Tell el-Muquaiyar, about 160 miles north of the present head of the Persian Gulf and almost ten miles west of the present Euphrates. The ancient city, however, which was called Urim in Sumerian and Uri in Akkadian, was situated right on the Euphrates and probably not far from the ancient head of the Persian Gulf.

According to the Hebrew text of Gn 11.28, 31 and Neh 9.7, Abraham's original home was in Ur of the Chaldees (Heb. 'ûr kaŝdîm ). It is usually assumed that this is the same city as the Sumerian-Babylonian city of Ur, even though there are certain difficulties in the identification. According to the Greek Septuagint, Abraham came not from Ur of the Chaldees, but "from the country of the Chaldees." Granted that the mention of the Chaldees [see chaldeans] is an anachronism, since this people did not appear in southern Mesopotamia until almost a millennium after the time of Abraham, there is still the difficulty that Biblical tradition did not connect the culture of the Patriarchs with that of southern Mesopotamia, as it did with that of Abraham's second reported home in Haran in northern Mesopotamia. On the other hand, it is remarkable that, after Ur, Haran was one of the most important centers of the worship of the moon-god Sin. It is therefore quite possible that Abraham's relatives, who were apparently devotees of this god in Haran, may have migrated northward from Ur after some destruction of this city.

Bibliography: c. l. woolley, The Royal Cemetery (London 1934) v.2, pts. 1 and 2 of Ur Excavations (London 1927–), Joint Expedition of the British Museum and Museum of University of Pennsylvania to Mesopotamia; Ur of the Chaldees (rev. ed. Baltimore 1954). Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Bible, translated and adapted by l. hartman (New York, 1963) 2518–20.

[j. e. steinmueller]