Understanding the World and Time of Ur of the Chaldees, Home of Abraham

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                   

Abraham came from Ur of the Chaldees. He was first called Abram, born about 1948 BCE.   My Tanakh, Stone Edition, stated in English: Genesis (11:24-32), page 25 Haran died in the lifetime of Terah his father, in his native land, in Ur Kasdim.  ...Terah took his son Abram, and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of Abram his son, and they departed with them from Ur Kasdim to go to the land of Canaan;  they arrived at Haran and they settled there.  ....The days of Terah were 205 years, and Terah died in Haran.   

                                                                    

From Ur, Abraham traveled 700 miles to the borders of present-day Iraq, another 700 miles into Syria, another 800 down to Egypt by the inland road, and then back into Canaan - what is now Israel. It is a journey that today's pilgrim, for reasons of international polity, cannot easily replicate. 

These 4 adults were very brave to travel on the first leg of Abram's journey of 700 miles.  They must have traveled either by mule or by camel, and then walked, too.     

We know where Ur is on the map, but is this the Ur of the Chaldees?  Was that a different place? Was it Uruk?   Uruk, one of Sumer's largest cities, has been estimated to have had a population of 50,000–80,000 at its height; given the other cities in Sumer, and the large agricultural population, a rough estimate for Sumer's population might be 0.8 million to 1.5 million. The world population of today has been estimated at about 7.9 Billion.   Erdu?  These lie all along the Euphrates River, in Sumer and reaching Babylon of Babylonia.  

Way back before Abram's time, inscriptions describing the reforms of king Urukagina of Lagash (c. 2350 BCE) say that he abolished the former custom of polyandry in his country, prescribing that a woman who took multiple husbands be stoned with rocks upon which her crime had been written.

Sumerian culture was male-dominated and stratified. The Code of Ur-Nammu, the oldest such codification yet discovered, dating to the Ur III, reveals a glimpse at societal structure in late Sumerian law. Beneath the lu-gal ("great man" or king), all members of society belonged to one of two basic strata: The "lu" or free person, and the slave (male, arad; female geme). The son of a lu was called a dumu-nita until he married. A woman (munus) went from being a daughter (dumu-mi), to a wife (dam), then if she outlived her husband, a widow (numasu) and she could then remarry another man who was from the same tribe.

Sumer is the earliest known civilization in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia, emerging during the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Ages between the sixth and fifth millennium BCE.  Sumer was an ancient civilization founded in the Mesopotamia region of the Fertile Crescent situated between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Known for their innovations in language, governance, architecture and more, Sumerians are considered the creators of civilization as modern humans understand it

Sumeria was a region of Southern Babylonia named after a non-Semitic people which migrated there in prehistoric times and founded a series of city-states.  It's culture was the basis of Babylonian civilization.

Babylonia was an ancient state of Western Asia, the land of Shinar or of the Kasdim (Chaldees).  It is regarded as the CRADLE OF HUMANITY, SCENE OF MAN'S FIRST REVOLT AGAINST G-D with the Tower of Babel.  THE FLOOD epic is from this area.  Abraham was born in UR of the Chaldeans, but migrated to Canaan where he later fought Amraphel, king of Shinar.  Shinar was a country, now identified as a land called Shanhar mentioned in cuneiform documents.  This was situated either in Northern Mesopotamia or in  the plain of Babylon.  Babylon was to the prophets, a symbol of insolent pagan tyranny.   .                                                

In English Chaldea, Chaldeans (Hebrew-Kasdim) were a Semitic tribe which migrated to Southern Babylonia and adopted the ancient Babylonian culture.  They gradually gained supremacy over the native inhabitants and gave their name to the entire area.                                                                              

        Nebuchadnezzar,  second and greatest king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, ruling from the death of his father Nabopolassar in 605 BCE to his own death in 562 BCE. He inherited the Assyrian Empire being 1st son and successor,  and after his conquest of Judah in 597 BCE and 586 BCE, exiled many Jews to Babylon.  In essence, they just about wound up in their ancient homeland being quite close to Ur.  Many of the Jews were able to return to Jerusalem about 70 years later in 538 BCE.,, but some chose to remain in Babylon.     He was known for his military might, the splendour of his capital, Babylon, and his important part in Jewish history.

Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, sent an army against Jerusalem to punish Jehoiakim, king of Judah. Nebuchadnezzar was angry because, after three years of paying tribute, Jehoiakim had rebelled against the Babylonian.  King Jehoiakim died during the siege of Jerusalem and was succeeded by his son, the 18-year-old Jehoiachin. The new king surrendered to Nebuchadnezzar after resisting for three months. Jehoiachin, his mother, his servants, and the officials of his court were exiled to Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar appointed Mattaniah, the 21-year-old uncle of Jehoiachin, to be the new king and changed his name to Zedekiah.

The Assyrians were the first to cart away the northern 10 tribes of Israel in 721 BCE.  The land they went back to, Assyria, was actually the land that the Babylonians would take over later.  

Attempts were made, initially under Merodach-Baladan, to overthrow Assyria, and they finally succeeded in the 7th century BCE under Nabopolassar and his son, Nebuchadnezzar, who established an empire extending from Assyria to the Egyptian border.                                                        

Then this was conquered by the Persians, today's Iran,  in 539 BCE.  Who was the king of Persia in 539 BCE? Like many ancient rulers, the Persian conqueror Cyrus the Great (ca 590– ca 529 B.C.E), also known as Cyrus II, was born of royalty.  He was the one who strongly suggested that  the Jews (of Judah) return to Jerusalem.  

                                                                          

The hanging gardens of Babylon were famous.  The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World listed by Hellenic culture. They were described as a remarkable feat of engineering with an ascending series of tiered gardens containing a wide variety of trees, shrubs, and vines, resembling a large green mountain constructed of mud bricks. It was said to have been built in the ancient city of Babylon, near present-day Hillah, Babil province, in Iraq.

The fame of the Chaldeans as astrologers made the terms synonymous long after their empire had vanished.  Aramaic has been called Chaldaic or Chaldee but this is a misnomer.   Aramaic is a North-Semitic language, still in restricted use.  It's closer to Hebrew than other Semitic languages and was used as an international language for commerce in the 6th century BCE.  

One reference in my Jewish Encyclopedia suggests that it is probably Ur of the Cassites, a term not included in the encyclopedia. 

However,  the Kassites (/ˈkæsaɪts/) were people of the ancient Near East, who controlled Babylonia after the fall of the Old Babylonian Empire c. 1595 BC and until c. 1155 BC (middle chronology). The endonym of the Kassites was probably Galzu, although they have also been referred to by the names Kaššu, Kassi, Kasi or Kashi.

They gained control of Babylonia after the Hittite sack of the city in 1595 BC (i.e. 1531 BC per the short chronology), and established a dynasty based first in Babylon and later in Dur-Kurigalzu. The Kassites were members of a small military aristocracy but were efficient rulers and locally popular, and their 500-year reign laid an essential groundwork for the development of subsequent Babylonian culture. The chariot and the horse, which the Kassites worshipped, first came into use in Babylonia at this time.

The Kassite language has not been classified. What is known is that their language was not related to either the Indo-European language group, nor to Semitic or other Afro-Asiatic languages, and is most likely to have been a language isolate, although some linguists have proposed a link to the Hurro-Urartian languages of Asia Minor. According to some data, the Kassites were a Hurrian tribe. However, the arrival of the Kassites has been connected to the contemporary migrations of Indo-European peoples. Several Kassite leaders and deities bore Indo-European names, and it is possible that they were dominated by an Indo-European elite similar to the Mitanni, who ruled over the Hurro-Urartian-speaking Hurrians of Asia Minor.

Abraham is important to Jews, Christians and Muslims.  He is considered by Jews as the Father of Judaism, a prophet, the founder of monotheism, and later legends referred to him as the repository of all wisdom and science.  He is the prototype of humility and kindness, famed for his hospitality.  Circumcision is spoken of as "the Covenant of Abraham our Patriarch, Father,"  It is generally believed that he lived at the beginning of the 2nd millennium BCE.  I have the date of 1948 BCE for his birth, figured by rabbis.   This was a polytheistic age, an age when people believed in and worshipped many gods. Yet within this atmosphere, Abram answers the call of God and it is because of this that he accepts and realizes the reality of there being only one true God.

Resource:

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/cyrus-the-great#:~:text=Like%20many%20ancient%20rulers%2C%20the,II%2C%20was%20born%20of%20royalty.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanging_Gardens_of_Babylon

https://www.nytimes.com/1983/03/13/travel/footsteps-of-abraham-by-malachi-martin.html

https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/judaism/history/abraham_1.shtml

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumer

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebuchadnezzar_II

https://www.worldhistory.org/Nebuchadnezzar_II/#:~:text=Nebuchadnezzar%20II%20(r.,liberated%20Babylonia%20from%20Assyrian%20rule.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kassites

https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/#:~:text=7.9%20Billion%20(2021),Nations%20estimates%20elaborated%20by%20Worldometer.