The Search For Abraham's Father, Terah's Chaldean Tribal Origins In 3rd Millennium BCE And Found It

 Nadene Goldfoot                                   

  Zagros Mountain area could have been homeland for Terah's ancestors into 3rd millennium BCE.  The mountains are an imposing natural barrier and have traditionally provided the boundary between cultural and political entities, including the early Mesopotamian and Median cultures, the Parthian and Roman empires, and, more recently, the Persian and Ottoman empires. The highest point is Mount Dena, at 4,409 metres (14,465 ft). I compare that to Mt. Hood in Oregon of 11,240 ft (3,426 m).  Mt Dena is the highest.  

Noah's mountain was Ararat.  Mount Ararat is the tallest mount of Turkey, located in the easternmost part of the country in the province of Iğdır, very close to the borders between Turkey and Armenia, and Turkey with Iran. It is a very important historic site as well since it is believed that a famous Biblical story of the Noah Ark resting took place. The mount has two summits, known as the Greater Ararat (elevation is 16,854 ft, or 5,137 m) and the Lesser Ararat (elevation is 12,782 ft, or 3,896 m).  It is higher than Mt. Dena.  

The mountains and foothills that approach the range are home to a significant portion of Iran’s population, including, in addition to ethnic Persians, significant numbers of Assyrian Christians, Kurds, and Turks as well as Lurs, Bakhtyārī, and Qashqāʾī tribal groups. The traditional economy is based largely on animal husbandry (being shepherds ?) , and the production of high-quality rugs and carpets has long been a mainstay of the region. Large reserves of petroleum are located in or near the southwestern foothills.   As Jacob reported to the pharaoh, his family had always been shepherds.  Abraham-Isaac -Jacob's family have always been shepherds.  

The Lurs and their neighbours, the Bakhtyārī, are partly agricultural and partly pastoral tribes. Lush grazing pastures between the mountain ranges enabled the Lurs to maintain themselves as pastoral nomads until the 20th century, when they developed agriculture largely in response to economic and political pressures from outside. . The economic and political life of the Lurs resembles that of their northern Kurdish neighbours. The traditional authority of the tribal chiefs remains a more viable force among nomadic groups than among those who are more fully settled. As with the Kurds and Bakhtyārī, women among the Lurs have traditionally had greater freedom than other Arab or Iranian women.   Terah's people of the Chaldees tribe could be from the Lurs or Bakhtyari tribes originally.   

                               Late 3rd Millennium BCE

During the late third millennium BC one of the biggest transformations of the ancient Near East took place, affecting almost all regions from Egypt to Anatolia and from the Mediterranean Sea to the Iranian plateau. This period not only saw the collapse of urbanization in the southern Levant at the end of the Early Bronze Age III and the following pastoral Intermediate Bronze, and the rise and decline of the Akkad Empire in the Upper Euphrates region, but also the end of the Egyptian Old Kingdom in the Nile valley. In recent years it has been argued that climatic reasons, especially rapid climate change in the late third millennium BC (the so-called 4.2 ka BP event) might have triggered this supra-regional collapse in western Asia and Egypt, linking it to a period of aridification and cooling.  In ancient Egyptian history, the Old Kingdom mentioned   is the period spanning c. 2700–2200 BC. It is also known as the "Age of the Pyramids" or the "Age of the Pyramid Builders", as it encompasses the reigns of the great pyramid-builders of the Fourth Dynasty, such as King Sneferu, who perfected the art of pyramid-building, and the kings Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure, who constructed the pyramids at Giza.                                  

Sumeria**** most likely ancient ancestors of Abraham, where Sumer lies, was named after a non-Semitic people who migrated there in prehistoric times and founded a series of city-states.  It's culture was the basis of the Babylonian civilization and influenced the Semitic inhabitants of Akkad to their north.  Nimrod and Cush are connected with Sumerian tradition. 

The Sumerians are among the most mysterious people in the history of Earth.  They appeared suddenly in the fertile crescent that is the Tigris Euphrates valley, which had been inhabited by Neolithic farmers and villagers and Semitic nomads"- Abraham's ancient ancestors, I believe.  They bore no racial resemblance to the other Indo-European ethnics of the area.  Moreover, in cultural and technological development, the Sumerians were virtually light-years ahead of the people indigenous to the area.  They built great cities, established vast libraries, and created magnificent gold vessels, beautiful jewelry, and ornaments.  they demonstrated an astonishing grasp of higher mathematics---

                                                   

dividing the circle into 360 degrees, the hour into sixty minutes, the minute into sixty seconds.  And, unlike the crude pictographs that passed for writing throughout  the world at this time---perhaps seven thousand years ago---Sumerian writing is highly sophisticated, totally unlike and unrelated to any other known form of writing.  

That writing was unearthed on clay tablets found in 1914 by a German-American archaeological expedition that dug up the ancient Babylonian city of Nippur.  from these tablets, scholars deciphered the Sumerian account of the flood, an account which a George Smith was convinced along with other since then that it was accurate.  It was a shock to find reference to the Bible story of Noah's Flood epic as many take the Bible as literal truth while others think it's just stories or myths.  "In detail and degree the Sumerian account described a biblical event that seemingly predated the Bible.  Was the Bible, then, recounting even older stories in the same manner that Smith's tablet was based upon the accounts of earlier civilizations?  It seemed to Smith that the biblical Noah is patterned after a Sumerian hero named Utanapishtim, who had been warned b his god, Ea, of an impending deluge that would destroy all living things on earth.  

Akkad existed in the Babylonian period and was the NE region of the valley between the Euphrates and the Tigris Rivers, which contained Babylon, Sippar, and other important cities.  It was also considered as the ancient city of Babylonia (mentioned in Gen. 10:10), and was the residence of Sargon the Great., king of Assyria from 721-712 BCE who lived in Akkad.    

The Akkadians spoke a Semitic language.  They were formally known as Assyrian because of a prevalence of Akkadian inscriptions (in cuneiform script) found in Assyria, it is now called after the Akkadians the first people to use it in writing.  Akkadian was spoken from the 4th millennium BCE and served as the language of diplomacy and commerce throughout the Near East (Middle East) until the Greek conquest.  Akkadian resembles Hebrew and Aramaic in structure, phonology, and vocabulary but differs from them in the derived forms of its verbs, in the use of tenses, in syntax, and in the fact that its gutturals lost their distinctive character.  

It is known that During a period of weakness in the East Semitic-speaking kingdom of Babylonia, new tribes of West Semitic-speaking migrants arrived in the region from the Levant between the 11th and 9th centuries BC. The earliest waves consisted of Suteans and Arameans. 

The Suteans (Akkadian: Sutī’ū, possibly from Amorite: Š^etī’u) were a nomadic Semitic people who lived throughout the Levant, Canaan and Mesopotamia, specifically in the region of Suhum, during the Old Babylonian period. They were famous in Semitic epic poetry for being fierce nomadic warriors, and like the Habiru, traditionally worked as mercenaries. Unlike Amorites, the Suteans were not governed by a king. They may have been part of the Ahlamu. Hypotheses regarding their identity variously identify them as Arameans, proto-Arabs or a unique Semitic people.            

             **** Common Ancestry Found ****

People of Aram (Syria) Arameans were a group of Semitic tribes who apparently invaded the Fertile Crescent in the 2nd half of the 2nd millennium BCE and roamed between the Persian Gulf and the Amanus Mountains.                   

Amanus Mts at top left mentioned above Alexandria and Gulf of Issus. The Amanus Mts today are called the Nur Mountains; is a mountain range in the Hatay Province of south-central Turkey, which starts south of the Taurus Mountains (and is linked with it), south of the Ceyhan river (old name: Pyramus), runs roughly parallel to the Gulf of İskenderun (old name: Gulf of Issus) (İskenderun was called Alexandria of Cilicia) and ends in the Mediterranean coast between the Gulf of İskenderun and the Orontes (Asi) river mouth.

*****The Bible (Gen.10:22) says Aram and Israel had a common ancestry and the Israelite patriarchs were of Aramaic origin and maintained ties of marriage with the tribes of Aram.  There you have it!  (Verified by Akkadian sources of the 12th cent.BCE).  The Arameans became well-known with Aramean independent states and princedoms of Aram Dammesek, Aram Naharaim, and Aram-Zobah came into being in Syria and Mesopotamia.  Aramean tribes even threatened Assyria by invasions !  Wars continued between them in 9th and 8th BCE centuries.  In 743-742 BCE  the Aramean states in Syria were overthrown and turned into Assyrian dependencies, rebellions being punished by the deportation of the inhabitants to distant countries.   It was later  in 721 BCE that Assyria invaded Jerusalem and took away 27,290 Israelites to Assyria and Media and replaced them with Syrian and Babylonian prisoners. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arameans

Left: Stela (carved monument) with reliefs displaying Baal (Hadad) with lightning, 15th to 13th BC. Found in the acropolis of Ras Shamra (ancient Ugarit) source  Right: Assyrian soldiers of Ashurbanipal carrying a statue of Adad (Ramman - the 'thunderer'), the god of tempest and thunder. source.

The principal Aramean deity in Syria was Hadad, god of wind, rain,, thunder, and lightening.  

They were followed a century or so later by the Kaldu, a group who became known later as the Chaldeans or the Chaldees. These migrations did not affect the powerful kingdom and empire of Assyria in Upper Mesopotamia, which repelled these incursions.

These nomadic Chaldeans settled in the far southeastern portion of Babylonia, chiefly on the left bank of the Euphrates. Though for a short time the name commonly referred to the whole of southern Mesopotamia in Hebraic literature, this was a geographical and historical misnomer as 

Abraham, we figure, was born in 1948 BCE of the 2nd millennium in Ur of the Chaldees.  

Chaldea proper was in fact only the plain in the far southeast formed by the deposits of the Euphrates and the Tigris, extending about 640 kilometres (400 mi) along the course of these rivers and averaging about 160 km (100 mi) in width. 

Later, there were several kings of Chaldean origins who ruled Babylonia. From 626 BC to 539 BC, a ruling family referred to as the Chaldean dynasty, named after their possible Chaldean origin, ruled the kingdom at its height under the Neo-Babylonian Empire, although the final ruler of this empire, Nabonidus (556–539 BC) (and his son and regent Belshazzar) was a usurper of Assyrian ancestry.

                                   

     Abraham was from Ur of the Chaldees, and the Chaldees tribe was almost living in the Iranian Plateau.  The Zacros Mountains separated the Iranian Plateau from Mesopotamia.   They moved westward to Ur.  Why?  What was going on?              

Chaldea was a small country that existed between the late 10th or early 9th and mid-6th centuries BC, after which the country and its people were absorbed and assimilated into the indigenous population of Babylonia.  Semitic-speaking, it was located in the marshy land of the far southeastern corner of Mesopotamia and briefly came to rule Babylon.  Of the peoples of this farther eastern land, they may have been the only Semitic speakers, keeping them apart, and that brings up another question of how they happened to speak a Semitic language amongst those that didn't?  This presents another influx of migration.  

Ancient Persians:  The ancient Persians were an Indo-Iranian people who migrated to the Iranian plateau during the end of the second millennium B.C., possibly from the Caucasus or Central Asia. Originally a pastoral people who roamed the steppes with their livestock, they were ethnically related to the Bactrians, Medes and Parthians. In the fifth century B.C. the Greek historian Herodotus described them as being divided into several different tribes, the most powerful of which was the Pasargadae, of whom the Achaemenid clan was a part.  Was Terah's tribe of Chaldea ancient Persians or are they running from them?  We know that Abraham must have had the Y haplogroup of J1, which is the later called the Cohen gene.  

"We first hear of the Persian people from Assyrian sources," an ancient ethnic group indigenous to the Middle East, Daryaee told Live Science.  

DNA testing results are:  Some researchers used Y-chromosome haplogroups to elucidate paternal connections in Iranian populations. For example, diversity of Iranian Azeri’s Y-Chromosomal haplogroups among Turkish-Speaking Populations of the Middle East was investigated. They could detect J, BR*, P*, E* and R1a1 Y-chromosomal haplogroups as frequent haplogroups (between 10%–40%) in North West of Iran . New clues from the Y-Chromosome Variation of Modern Iranians were reported and found different haplogroups which J2, R, G, J1, Q and L haplogroups showed higher frequency. 

From Mediterranean Sea to Iranian Plateau came interaction of people with exchange of goods and ideas.  

We know about this system of interaction and exchange both through archaeological research and through economic and literary texts preserved in the cuneiform tradition. Both lines of evidence tell us that from around 2900 to 1700 BCE there existed a vibrant relationship linking Mesopotamia to the Arabian Peninsula, the Iranian Plateau, and the Indus valley in modern day Pakistan.  From the Iranian Plateau came all sorts of materials including timber, gold, silver, copper, objects carved from soft, dark steatite or chlorite, alabaster objects, and colorful semiprecious stones used for cylinder seals and jewelry.  In the resource-rich lands to the east of Mesopotamia, a variety of societies co-existed, each one uniquely adapted to its distinct environment. 

Terah's family of Abraham had settled in Ur, keeping up the distinction of being of the Chaldees tribe of the East.  They had by-passed being from a Clan by joining natives of Ur who had been there long before and others that were immigrants from other places.  Ur was a well developed city with much to offer as it was a highly civilized nature of the city by their standards, not ours;   and very old as it held evidence of an extensive flood at an earlier date; maybe the flood Noah experienced?  

Our ancient origins were the Arameans of Turkey, specifically from the mountains of Amanus or Nur mountains as they are called today.  Turkey is also one of the origins of a Q-M242 line of Jewish men.  Turkey is also home of Mt. Ararat-Noah's mountain because he landed there being it is a very high mountain compared to others.  From this site, Abraham's family tree moved to Ur of the Chaldees eventually in the next millennium.  .  

Updated 12:12am Monday of 8/21/23 on Sumeria

Resource:

https://isac.uchicago.edu/research/symposia/earlymiddle-bronze-age-transition-ancient-near-east-chronology-c14-and-climate#:~:text=Abstract%3A%20The%20mid%2D%20to%20late,Akkad%20empire%20in%20upper%20Mesopotamia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Anatolia#:~:text=The%20history%20of%20Anatolia%20(often,including%20Achaemenid%2C%20Hellenistic%20and%20Roman

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5971182/  DNA results

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

Update:  Book: The Outer Space Connection by Alan and Sally Landsburg with Foreward by Rod Serling.p. 100.