Abram, An Urian of Chaldees, And Where The Chaldean Tribe Came From Part 2

 Nadene Goldfoot                                      

Standing on the Ziggaret of Ur;  perhaps their Royal Family.  Good morning from UR, royal city of the #Chaldeans.  Iraqis proud to share their native #Chaldean and #Sumerian heritage through creative and beautiful native fashion design. Reflecting the genius people of #Mesopotamia and the builders of the first human civilization in human history.

Abram's tribe seems to be those that came to Ur from the Chaldees, since the Bible refers to his city as Ur of the Chaldees.  This differentiates the native Urians who were not Semites from the tribe who came and settled there from the Chaldees who were Semites, meaning they were people speaking a Semitic language such as Hebrew or Arabic.

    Tigris and Euphrates Rivers are in Iraq; so Chaldea was more in Iran.  That's where his tribe came from; that became part of Ur of the Chaldees, a Semitic (Hebrew-speaking tribe) or language like Hebrew.  Portuguese and French are both Latin, or Romance, languages while Farsi and Arabic represent two different language groups: Iranian and Semitic, respectively. In fact, Farsi is not only in a separate language group from Arabic but it's also in a separate language family.  Farsi is what they speak in Iran.  So I would say that the Chaldean tribes were not happy in Persia, either because they did not speak the same language.  Maybe that's why they moved on to the Euphrates River and Ur.    

Chaldea (/kælˈdiːə/) was a small country that existed between the late 10th or early 9th and mid-6th centuries BCE, 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. The Hebrew Bible (Torah) uses the term כשדים (Kaśdim) and this is translated as Chaldaeans in the Greek Old Testament, although there is some dispute as to whether Kasdim in fact means Chaldean or refers to the south Mesopotamian Kaldu.  

 The name appears in Hebrew in the Bible as Kaśdim (כשדים) and in Aramaic as Kaśdāy (כשדי).

In the Torah (Bible) (Book of Genesis 22:22), the name "Kesed"(כשׂד, ancient pronunciation /kaɬd/) , is the singular form of "Kasdim"(כַּשְׂדִּים), meaning Chaldeans. 

Kesed is identified as son of Abraham's brother Nahor ((Genesis 11:26 NIV). When Terah had lived 70 years, he begot Abram, Nahor,, and Haran.  Haran became the name of a town that Abram reached on the way from Ur to Canaan and lived there until he was 75 years old.  

          Aram-Damascus land or Syria to us:  The Levant c. 830 BCE

and King Jehu (843-816) ruled Israel .  He was unsuccessful in his wars with Aram and paid tribute to Shalmaneser III of Assyria to obtain his protection.  On repelling the Assyrian threat, Hazael of Aram deprived Jehu of much of his territory.  His dynasty continued to reign for a century.  

 Scripture also shares that Nahor was married to Milkah, the daughter of his brother Haran) (and brother of Kemuel ( Genesis 22:21 as the nephew of Abraham, son of Nahor, brother of Bethuel (father of Rebekah) and the father of Aram), residing in Aram Naharaim. (ie, Aram of the Two Rivers, (Tigris and Euphrates) the NE area of Mesopotamia.  It is the land of origin of the patriarchs, and nearly all the names of the ancestors of Abraham, such as Serug, Nahor and Terah correspond to place-names in this region.  Aram means Syria and Aram-Dammesek was the most important Aramean kingdom in Syria in the 10th to 8th centuries BCE.  After the division of Solomon's kingdom, Aram was a constant danger to Israel. The Arameans were a group of linguistically related Semitic peoples living in what is today Syria and western Iraq. Their influence and presence spanned the region of the Fertile Crescent. According to the Table of Nations in Genesis 10:22, Aram, the ancestral father of the Arameans, was a grandson of Noah and a son of Noah's firstborn son, Shem. Genesis 22:20-24 

Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (37 – c. 100) also links Arphaxad (Arpachshad alternatively spelled Arphaxad or Arphacsad, is one of the postdiluvian men in the Shem–Terah genealogy.) and Chaldaea, in his Antiquities of the Jews, stating, “Arphaxad named the Arphaxadites, who are now called Chaldeans.”  Remember that Terah is the father of Abram.                              

The name Chaldaea is a latinization of the Greek Khaldaía (Χαλδαία), a hellenization of Akkadian māt Kaldu or Kašdu, suggesting an underlying /kaɬdu/.

The Torah holds the genealogy of mankind, starting with Adam and Eve and Seth, and through Seth that the human race survived.  The flood story is told and then the Tower of Babel when all people spoke the same language and then were dispersed in world, and wound up speaking different languages.  Trying to identify The Chaldeans is like trying to find a needle in the Tower of Babel. It's taken my Semitic tribes of Chaldees to Persia's land for an origin so far.  The descendants of Noah and the Flood were in Shinar and their building tried to reach heaven.  The story is that G-d frustrated their work by confusing their languages, leading to the diversity of tongues (Gen.11:1-9).  Modern scholars have seen a similarity between the tower and the Sumerian Ziggurat, or step-temple.  

 Bit Yâkin was the name of the largest and most powerful of the five tribes of the Chaldeans, or equivalently, their territory. The original extension of Bit Yâkin is not known precisely, but it extended from the lower Tigris into the Arabian Peninsula. Sargon II mentions it as extending as far as Dilmun or "sea-land" (littoral Eastern Arabia). "Chaldea" or mat Kaldi generally referred to the low, marshy, alluvial land around the estuaries of the Tigris and Euphrates, which at the time discharged their waters through separate mouths into the sea.                                      

      The Chaldean States in Babylonia during the 1st millennium BCE.

Important Kaldu tribes and their regions in southeastern Babylonia were Bit-Yâkin (the original area the Chaldeans settled in on the Persian Gulf), Bet-Dakuri, Bet-Adini, Bet-Amukkani, and Bet-Shilani.  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 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. 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.

The tribal capital Dur Yâkin was the original seat of Marduk-Baladan.

The king of Chaldea was also called the king of Bit Yakin, just as the kings of Babylonia and Assyria were regularly styled simply king of Babylon or Assur, the capital city in each case. In the same way, what is now known as the Persian Gulf was sometimes called "the Sea of Bit Yakin", and sometimes "the Sea of the Land of Chaldea".

Ur of the Chaldees was a special group of people who lived in Ur who were Hebrew speakers.  The natives of Ur did not speak their language.  Abram was one of them.  His tribe, a member of 5 tribes, seemed to come from a section of Persia, that was even further east than Ur was to Canaan.  They had been a nomadic society.  Abram's tribe was Semitic, meaning speaking a Semitic language such as Hebrew or Arabic.  Farsi, the language spoken in Persia (today's Iran) is not a Semitic language.  

Resource:

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

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

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://www.lingualinx.com/blog/farsi-vs-arabic-comparision#:~:text=Language%20Groups%20and%20Families&text=Portuguese%20and%20French%20are%20both,in%20a%20separate%20language%20family.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aram_(region)

Following Ur of Chaldees' History of the Chaldean Tribes, Where they Came From Part I

 Nadene Goldfoot                               

   We know Ur as Ur of the Chaldees.  Who were these people?  Abraham lived in the 2nd millennium about

1948 BCE.  The Babylonian Empire's heyday was in 1750 BCE, after Abraham's time.  CHALDEANS (Kaldu), West Semitic tribes of southern Babylonia attested in Assyrian texts from the early 9th century BCE.  By the middle of the 8th century they had lost their political and ethnic identity and became a constituent element in the population of Babylonia. Following Berossus, classical authors referred to Babylonians as Chaldeans and also used the name Chaldaioi as a synonym for astrologers and magicians.  

     

  

 

          

                          

The Chaldeans were traditional allies of the Elamites and Iranians in their struggle against the Assyrians.  

When the Chaldean chief, Merodach-Baladan, seized the Babylonian throne in 721 BCE, he organized an alliance between the Chaldean tribes and the Elamites against Assyria. 

Baladan, King of Babylonia lived from 721 to 710 BCE and for nine months in 703, maintained Babylonian independence in the face of Assyrian military supremacy for more than a decade.

 

Commencing in 728, the king of Assyria also officially held the title of king of Babylonia.  During that time, Merodach-Baladan, a member of the Yakin tribe, was a district ruler in Chaldea.  

 

During the unrest surrounding the accession 

of 

Sargon II of

 Assyria in 722, Merodach-Baladan entered 

Babylon and claimed the Babylonian throne, 

which had belonged to his forebear, E-

Marduk.  An attack by the Elamites two years 

later so weakened the Assyrians--though both 

sides claimed victory. 

   

The Merodach-Baladan Boundary Stone:  

Merodach-baladan II, chief of the Bit-Yakin tribe
and then King of Babylon reigned 722-710 + 703-702 BCE
boundary stone (kudurru) The king is evidently granting
property rights to one of his clients.

The Chaldeans seemed to come from the area of Parthia, which was today's Iran or yesterday's Persia. Ancient records called it  ‘Airyana vaeja’ – the ‘Aryan/Iranian expanse.’  Susa, a city, was in Persia.  

Sources: Albert T. Clay, Light on the Old Testament from Babel, 1906. Ira Maurice Price, The Monuments and the Old Testament, 1925.

According to Assyrian accounts, Sargon marched south against Babylonia in 710 BCE. After defeating the Elamites and Merodach-Baladan’s other allies, he turned toward Babylon. Merodach-Baladan fled, and the leading citizens of Babylon brought Sargon unopposed into the city, where he officially became king of Babylonia.

 In 626 the Chaldean leader Nabopolassar decided to renew the Babylonian struggle against Assyrian domination; he founded the Neo-Babylonian, or Chaldean, dynasty. In 614 the Medes of Media, led by King Cyaxares, captured the Assyrian capital, Aššur.   The Medes were sons of Japheth, and cooperated with the Babylonians in the 6th century  but later defeated by Cyrus of Persia.  

Resource:

from Encyclopedia Iranica

https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/chaldeans-kaldu-west-semitic-tribes#:~:text=CHALDEANS%20(Kaldu)%2C%20West%20Se

mitic,in%20the%20population%20of%20Babylonia.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Merodach-Baladan-II

The Man Who Dug Up Abraham's UR, Sir Leonard Woolley and His Excavations at Ur

 Nadene Goldfoot                                               

     Ur of the Chaldees (Kasdim in Hebrew), in its heyday.  before Abram in 3rd millennium BCE. Abram was born in about 1948 BCE (2nd millennium) The Chaldeans were a Semitic tribe that migrated in S. Babylonia and adopted the ancient Babylonian culture.  Gradually, they gained  supremacy over the native people their name, Chaldees, was used for the entire area.  Their astrologers became famous, even after they were gone. The Assyrians' Nebuchadnezzar in 7th century BCE came along and established an empire. This is the group evidently that Abram was originally from.   

Sir Charles Leonard Woolley (17 April 1880 – 20 February 1960) was a British archaeologist best known for his excavations at Ur in Mesopotamia. He is recognized as one of the first "modern" archaeologists who excavated in a methodical way, keeping careful records, and using them to reconstruct ancient life and history.  He was the son of a clergyman, so should have wondered about Abraham's city that he was born and raised in by Terah.  Abraham is mentioned in the Editor's preface, p. 8 &9.  Woolley has written a whole book about him called "Abraham."  

Sumer was humanity's first great civilization. Sumeria was a part of Babylonia that was not Semitic.  Even in today’s society you can still find traces of Sumerian inventions in agriculture, language, mathematics, religion and astronomy. Names like Nimrod and Cush  are connected to Sumerian tradition.  

Woolley (right) and T. E. Lawrence with a Hittite slab at Carchemish during excavation, between 1912 and 1914.

He gained experience by working  with TE Lawrence at the Hittite city of  Carchemish, the location of an important battle, about 605 BCE, between the Babylonians and Egyptians, mentioned in the Bible (Jer. 46:2). in Syria and Armarna in Egypt; The city was established in 1346 BC, built at the direction of the Pharaoh Akhenaten, and abandoned shortly after his death in 1332 BC. among other places.  Then he went to Ur, Abram's birth city where he lived before departing for Haran of ancient Babylonia. Woolley's finds will show Ur had a highly civilized nature of rich artwork made of gold and silver and other beautiful jewels as well as evidence of having a flood at an earlier date. "Woolley was one of the first archaeologists to propose that the flood described in the Book of Genesis was local after identifying a flood-stratum at Ur "400 miles long and 100 miles wide; but for the occupants of the valley that was the whole world". 

                         Woolley in Syria 1912

Woolley led a joint expedition of the British Museum and the University of Pennsylvania to Ur, beginning in 1922, which included his wife, the British archaeologist Katharine Woolley. There, they made important discoveries, including the Copper Bull and the Bull-Headed Lyre, 4 lyres in a pit holding a massive group of people with the queen, as if at a party, and each holding a cup as if to drink wine or poison, we don't know.  Was it a death party or were they tricked in dying with each other-including oxen and their wagons.  It was a shocking find that included all their gold and silver goods as well, a burial site unknown to the many looters of that period.                                

        Ur:  The editors say in the book's preface,  that contrary to the view consistently argued by Woolley, there is no actual proof that Tell el-Mukayyar, the Ur of his book, Ur, was identical with "Ur of the Chaldees' in Genesis 11:29-32.  Nor is there any agreed opinion on the existence of Abraham himself with these non-Jewish researchers, but we are aware of their disbeliefs. We're lucky that Wooley had a religious background and was curious.                                                                                      

Ur and its ziggurat, now in Iraq,  dedicated to the moon god , Nanna.  The city's patron deity was Nanna (in Akkadian, Sin), the Sumerian and Akkadian moon god, and the name of the city is in origin derived from the god's name, UNUG^KI, literally "the abode (UNUG) of Nanna". The site is marked by the partially restored ruins of the Ziggurat of Ur, which contained the shrine of Nanna, excavated in the 1930s. The temple was built in the 21st century BC (short chronology), during the reign of Ur-Nammu and was reconstructed in the 6th century BC by Nabonidus, the last king of Babylon. The ruins cover an area of 1,200 metres (3,900 ft) northwest to southeast by 800 metres (2,600 ft) northeast to southwest and rise up to about 20 metres (66 ft) above the present plain level.  As with many Mesopotamian gods, Nanna was incorporated into the Assyrian pantheon and, when the Neo-Assyrian Empire fell in 612 BCE, a great number of these deities lost favor. Nanna continued to be recognized, however, and was still worshiped in the region of Syria as late as the 3rd century CE when he was replaced by the Christian God.  In 637, Babylonia was conquered by the Arabs who followed Mohammad (d: 632  CE)  

These tombs, which date to the Early Dynastic IIIa period (approximately in the 25th or 24th century BCE), contained an immense treasure of luxury items made of precious metals and semi-precious stones imported from long distances (Ancient Iran, Afghanistan, India, Asia Minor, the Levant and the Persian Gulf). This wealth, unparalleled up to then, is a testimony of Ur's economic importance during the Early Bronze Age.           

"Ur was the burial site of what may have been many Sumerian royals. The Woolleys discovered tombs of great material wealth, containing large paintings of ancient Sumerian culture at its zenith, along with gold and silver jewelry, cups and other furnishings. The most extravagant tomb was that of "Queen" Pu-Abi. Amazingly enough, Queen Pu-Abi's tomb was untouched by looters. Inside the tomb, many well-preserved items were found, including a cylindrical seal bearing her name in Sumerian. Her body was found buried along with those of two attendants, who had presumably been poisoned to continue to serve her after death. Woolley was able to reconstruct Pu-Abi's funeral ceremony from objects found in her tomb."

 Gold helmet of Meskalamdug, ruler of the First Dynasty of Ur, 26th century BCE.

"It is thought that Ur had a stratified social system including slaves (captured foreigners), farmers, artisans, doctors, scribes, and priests. High-ranking priests apparently enjoyed great luxury and splendid mansions. Tens of thousands of cuneiform texts have been recovered from temples, the palace, and individual houses, recording contracts, inventories, and court documents, evidence of the city's complex economic and legal systems.

                                 

              Typical lyre of today  "The lyre has its origins in ancient history. Lyres were used in several ancient cultures surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. The earliest known examples of the lyre have been recovered at archeological sites that date to c. 2700 BCE in Mesopotamia."

I am left with Woolley's description of finding the huge party of dead people who joined the queen either willingly or by her plan of awe and shock with their deaths as well.  They all seemed to be dressed in their party clothing and jewelry, with their oxen and wagons, all dead in their natural repose.  4 lyres, their music accompanied them in death, giving us a real glimpse into their last moments.  Those people must have walked down a path to a lower level and that level gave way for the huge vaulted area below it.  Egypt had its pyramids above ground and Sumeria had theirs below ground. So shocking to me and for those poor people.  No wonder Abram wanted to leave this town of wealth.  

Abraham was originally from the Semitic tribe of Chaldea/Chaldees and settled in Ur, populated by a non-Semitic people.  They eventually became the dominant group, but by the time Abram was a young married man, of deplorable morals according to Abraham's beliefs.  The question now is--where did this tribe come from which we understand was in the East somewhere?  This is why we signify Ur as Ur of the Chaldees, different from any other Ur.  

Resource:

https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/chaldeans-kaldu-west-semitic-tribes#:~:text=CHALDEANS%20(Kaldu)%2C%20West%20Semitic,in%20the%20population%20of%20Babylonia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEtasd52cfg

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

Book: UR "of the Chaldees", a revised and updated edition of Sir Leonard Woolley's Excavations at Ur, by PRS Moorey.

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