EVIDENCES OP THE MIGRATION OP ABRAM. 117 



being on one of the great roadways of the Tigro-Euphrates 

 Valley, or one of the centres where various roadways met. 

 This is just exactly the position of Khai-ran, for from its 

 various gateways, roads branch off to Mosul, to Diarbeker, 

 Berijik via Orfa, to Balis, &c., just as in ancient days here 

 centred the roadways from Bir, Carchemish, Sirki (at the 

 month of the Khabour), Nineveh, and Babylon. 



The early connexion between Kharranand Chaldeais shown 

 by references to it in the great astronomical work in which 

 Sulpa-uddu, '^ The Messenger of the Rising Sun,'' or Mercury, 

 is called the ''Prince of the men of Kharran '^ (W.A.I., iii. 

 G7, 28), and on a chalcedony seal in the British Museum we 

 have a priest worshipping' before an altar, upon which is the 

 conical stone, and above it the Crescent Moon, with the 

 inscription >->{- ^, the " God of Kharran.^' 



Kharran was, however, chiefly celebrated as the site of a 

 very ancient temple of the Moon-god Sin, the same deity that 

 was the divine patron of Ur. This temple was called 

 RTT 1*^1 I^ifl- BiT-KHUL-KHUL, " The house of Brightness," 

 .and is called in the cylinder of Nabonidus, Bit-Sin sa ki-rib 

 AL khar-ra-nu (>"^y ^ ^^y*/-), "The house of Sin (Moon), 

 which is within the city of Khai'ran." The history of this 

 temple is preserved to us in the cylinder of Nabonidus, which 

 records his restoration of this temple. In exploring this 

 temple at the time of its restoration, the king states that he 

 found there the cylinder of Shalmaneser II., son of 

 Assurnazirpal, whose reign commenced in B.C. 858, but the 

 great work of restoration seems to have been that of 

 Assurbanipal, the son of Esarhaddon, who restored the temple 

 shortly after B.C. G 70. 



There is a tablet in the British Museum which throws some 

 considerable light on the prominent part which Assurbanipal 

 took in the restoi'ation of this temple. It appears that in the 

 year B.C. 670, when Esarhaddon was starting on his second 

 campaign against Tarku or Tirhakah, that he halted at Kharran 

 on the march. And entering into the temple, there the 

 priests pointed out to him the moon shining over the fields 

 with two crowns or a double halo on his head. This they 

 intei'preted as an omen that there should be two kings in the 

 land ; so Esarhaddon crowned his son king, and sent him back 

 to Nineveh to rule. This coronation in the temple at Kharran 

 took place on the 12th day of the month Aim, April, B.C. 670. 

 The result of this important event was that Assurbanipal 

 attached a great reverence to this temple, and restored and 

 beautified it very much, so much so that the temple, in the 

 days of Nabonidus, was almost regarded as his work. The 



