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  

  

The City of UR, Abraham's Home Town and Elam, the Enemy

 Nadene Goldfoot                                         

The man who started us in monotheism was Abram, later called Abraham after certain events had happened to him-showing the change.  He was born in Ur in about 1948 BCE, a bustling city on the Euphrates River in today's Iraq. He was the son of Terah, an idol-maker, who had a thriving business.

  Known as an important city of ancient southern Mesopotamia (Sumer) and its ziggurat.  

Ur was in lower Mesopotamia, the Sumer of the ancient world.  It was really the river-valley of the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers.  It lies about half-way between Bagdad and the head of the Gulf, about 10 miles west  of the present course of the Euphrates River.  Ur is in ruins, now, of course.  1 and1/2 miles to the east is a line of railway which joins Basra to the capital of Iraq. Basra is an Iraqi city located on the Shatt al-Arab. It had an estimated population of 1.4 million in 2018. Basra is also Iraq's main port, although it does not have deep water access, which is handled at the port of Umm Qasr. The city is one of the ports from which the fictional Sinbad the Sailor journeyed.

Human sacrifice occurred in these days.  Abram was going to sacrifice his son, Isaac, but learned that this was not to happen by being stopped by G-d.  The belief in human sacrifice continued long into Israel's history by women the Israelites took as foreign wives; beautiful but dangerous to their society.

Hanging Gardens of Babylon:  land of Shinar or of the Kasdim (Chaldees); cradle of humanity, 1st revolt against G-d with Tower of Babel,, the flood, where Ur was in the Chaldees.  Babylonia was in Mesopotamia and is another name for Iraq. Abraham, born in Ur, migrated to Canaan where he later fought Amraphel, king of Shinar (Gen.14).  

The Babylonian Nebuchadnezzar II (604 BCE inherited the Assyrian Empire and after his conquest of Judah in 597 BCE and again in 586 BCE, exiled many Jews to Babylon.  Members of the 10 Tribes of Jacob, taken by the Assyrians in 721 BCE, were probably still living there and now were united with this new group of Jewish captives.  The Babylonian Talmud was written here by former captives that was an outstanding work.                                                  

Ur on Euphrates and later on, Baghdad developed on Tigris

 Located along the Tigris River and at the junction of historic trade roads, Baghdad is the capital of Iraq and the country's largest city being home to more than 7.6 million inhabitants. Had large Jewish community by 763 CE.  It had originally been a Persian village called Baghdad, and was selected by al-Manṣūr, the second caliph of the Abbasid dynasty, for his capital.

                                    The ruins of Eridu
 The people of Sumer's most ancient city was Eridu, which lie 11 miles south of Ur. Eridu has been excavated by the  Iraqi government in 1947-1949.  Eridu was revered as the oldest city in Sumer according to the king lists, and its patron god was Enki (Ea), “lord of the sweet waters that flow under the earth.” The site, located at a mound called Abū Shahrayn, was excavated principally between 1946 and 1949 by the Iraq Antiquities Department; it proved to be one of  the most important of the prehistoric urban centres in southern Babylonia.                      

                           city of Basrah

In 1854, Mr. Joe E. Taylor of the British Consul at Basra was hired by the British Museum  to check out sites of southern Mesopotamia so he first tackled the MOUND OF PITCH (Bitumen).  He unearthed inscriptions that revealed that this nameless ruin was the site of the ancient UR, mentioned  in the Torah.  After 2 seasons, this site was closed down.  Evidently the museum found it too dangerous a place to work in, and wanted to get back there.  

Harry Reginald Holland Hall born in 1873 or Dr. Hall died unexpectedly on 13 October, 1930 in prime of life at 57.  At age 16, he wrote a history on ancient Persia.  

The first serious excavations at Ur were made after World War I by H.R. Hall of the British Museum, and as a result a joint expedition was formed by the British Museum and the University of Pennsylvania that carried on the excavations under Leonard Woolley’s directorship from 1922 until 1934. Almost every period of the city’s lifetime has been illustrated by the discoveries, and knowledge of Mesopotamian history has been greatly enlarged.

It was found that the shoreline may have run  from 80 to 175 miles northwest of its present line.  Ancient texts were found to mention Eridu and Ur "on the sea," which could have been quite true. 

Sir Leonard Woolley was the main archaeologist of Ur.  He was the son of a clergyman  and when young thought of going into the church himself as a profession, and was probably the main reason why he was so interested in Ur.   He wrote many books with this in mind.  By 1914 (when my mother was born)  reviewers were negative about his biblical references, saying they were inappropriate.  So by 1936, Woolley wrote a whole book called ABRAHAM, to UR and the  patriarchal narratives.  As a Christian, he opened the door of vetting the truth about Ur in the Torah.

Woolley mentioned a bowl they found, carved with a demon and animal figures, in a style possibly by Elamites or others in SW Iran. The  temples in Ur were held in highest regard by kings of the Akkadian dynasty.  A copy was made by a later scribe recorded the inscription on the base of a statue set up by manishtushu, Rimush's successor, at Ur and dedicated to the god Enlil.  Even the last great king of the dynasty, Naram-Sin, is only evidenced at UR by similar later copies of statue inscriptions, and by vessel and mace-head fragments bearing his name.  

                              This copyright was in 1954.  
His UR of the Chaldees was done in 1982.

                                    King Sargon I

What was found:  In the next (Early Dynastic) period(29th-24th centuries) Ur became the capital of the whole of southern Mesopotamia under the Sumerian kings of the 1st dynasty of Ur (25th century BCE). Excavation of a vast cemetery from the period preceding that dynasty (26th century) produced royal tombs containing almost incredible treasures in gold, silver, bronze, and semiprecious stones, showing not only the wealth of the people of Ur but also their highly developed civilization and art. Not the least remarkable discovery was that of the custom whereby kings were buried along with a whole retinue of their court officials, servants, and women, privileged to continue their service in the next world. Musical instruments from the royal tombs, golden weapons, engraved shell plaques and mosaic pictures, statuary and carved cylinder seals, all are a collection of unique importance, illustrating a civilization previously unknown to the historian. 

A few personal inscriptions confirmed the real existence of the almost legendary ruler Sargon I, king of Akkad, who reigned in the 24th century BCE, and a cemetery illustrated the material culture of his time.

From the 22nd century, To the next period, that of the 3rd dynasty of Ur, when Ur was again the capital of an empire, belong some of the most important architectural monuments preserved on the site. Foremost among these is the ziggurat, a three-storied solid mass of mud brick faced with burnt bricks set in bitumen, rather like a stepped pyramid; on its summit was a small shrine, the bedchamber of the moon god Nanna (Sin), the patron deity and divine king of Ur. The lowest stage measures at its foot some 210 by 150 feet (64 by 46 metres), and its height was about 40 feet. On three sides the walls, relieved by shallow buttresses, rose sheer. On the northeast face were three great staircases, each of 100 steps, one projecting at right angles from the centre of the building, two leaning against its wall, and all three converging in a gateway between the first and the second terrace. From this a single flight of steps led upward to the top terrace and to the door of the god’s little shrine. The lower part of the ziggurat, built by Ur-Nammu, the founder of the dynasty, was astonishingly well preserved; enough of the upper part survived to make the restoration certain.

From the 21st to 6th century:  Elamite states were among the leading political forces of the Ancient Near East. In classical literature, Elam was also known as Susiana , a name derived from its capital Susa, actually in Iran. 

Susa, now an UNESCO World Heritage Center located in the south-west of Iran, in the lower Zagros Mountains, the property encompasses a group of archaeological mounds rising on the eastern side of the Shavur River, as well as Ardeshir’s palace, on the opposite bank of the river.
 The emergence of written records from around 3000 BCE also parallels Sumerian history, where slightly earlier records have been found. In the Old Elamite period (Middle Bronze Age), Elam consisted of kingdoms on the Iranian plateau, centered in Anshan, and from the mid-2nd millennium BCE, it was centered in Susa in the Khuzestan lowlands. Its culture played a crucial role during the Persian Achaemenid dynasty that succeeded Elam, when the Elamite language remained among those in official use. Elamite is generally considered a language isolate unrelated to any other languages. In accordance with geographical and archaeological matches, some historians argue that the Elamites comprise a large portion of the ancestors of the modern day Lurs whose language, Luri, split from Middle Persian.

The great brick mausoleums of the 3rd-dynasty kings and the temples they built were sacked and destroyed by the Elamites, but the temples at least were restored by the kings of the succeeding dynasties of Isin and Larsa, and, though it ceased to be the capital, Ur retained its religious and commercial importance. Having access by river and canal to the Persian Gulf, it was the natural headquarters of foreign trade. 

As early as the reign of Sargon of Akkad, it had been in touch with India, at least indirectly. Personal seals of the Indus valley type from the 3rd dynasty and the Larsa period have been found at Ur, while many hundreds of clay tablets show how the foreign trade was organized. The “sea kings” of Ur carried goods for export to the entrepôt at Dilmun (Bahrain) and there picked up the copper and ivory that came from the east.

Sumerians believed in anthropomorphic polytheism, or of many gods in human form, which were specific to each city-state. The core pantheon consisted of An (heaven), Enki (a healer and friend to humans), Enlil (gave spells spirits must obey), Inanna (love and war), Utu (sun-god), and Sin (moon-god).

Abram left all this as the people were idol worshippers and he wanted his future descendants to believe in ONE G-d as he now did.  

Resource:

Book:  UR "of the Chaldees" updated Edition of Sir Leonard Woolley's Excavations at UR, by PRS Mooney

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://www.britannica.com/place/Ur

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

https://www.britannica.com/place/Eridu

https://www.britannica.com/place/Baghdad/History

https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1455/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elam#:~:text=Elamite%20states%20were%20among%20the,derived%20from%20its%20capital%20Susa.

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.