BABYLON IN THE DAYS OF NEBUCHADREZZAR. 



203 



These Chaldeans Urquhart held to have been the ancient Kurds, 

 and so do I. Surely Ur of the Chaldees must have stood in the 

 north of Mesopotamia,* not in the south of Babylonia, as it is now 

 the custom to place it. If Urfah or Orfah (the Greek Edessa or 

 Orrhoe) was Ur of the Chaldees (as its inhabitants from of old have 

 said and the Jews in the Talmud have written), then we can under- 

 stand how Terah, having, at his son Abram's desire, removed thence 

 in the direction of Canaan, stopped short after forty miles or so at 

 Haran, not liking to cross the Euphrates into an unknown region. | 

 But if Mugheir or Hur in southern Babylonia was Terah's native 

 city, then, having already travelled about 800 miles thence to Haran, 

 he would not have been staggered by a journey of 400 more from 

 Haran to Canaan. [Indeed, he would not have gone to Haran at 

 all, but would have stopped just half-way at Jebbah, near Hit, 

 or Ahava, since it is there that the proper road turns off to Damascus 

 and Canaan.] 



Now Orfah is close to the southern borders of Kurdistan : and 

 the southern dialect of the Kurds, though now mainly Persian, 

 is mingled with Turanian words ; while across Kurdistan from 

 west to east stretches a line of rock sculptures made by a dynasty 

 that flourished in the eighth and seventh centuries B.C. and wrote 



* Stephen distinctly says (Acts vli) that it was " in Mesopotamia before 

 he dwelt in Haran," that God commanded Abraham to change his dwelling- 

 place ; and the ancient geographers made the southern boundary of 

 Mesopotamia the first canal linking the Euphrates and Tigris about 

 100 miles north of Babylon (Eng. Encyclo., Mesopotamia). 



t The inference from Eupolemus's statement is quite uncertain ; and 

 he may after all have referred to Orfah, or Orrhoe, not to Mugheir, or Hur. 

 His words are found in a quotation made by Eusebius {Praep. Ev. ii, 17) 

 that Abraham was born en polei tes Bahylonias kamarine hen tines 

 legousin polin Ourien in a kamarine city of Babylonia, which some call 

 the city Ourie. From this, because kamar in Arabic means moo7i, and 

 the moon was worshipped in the one remaining temple of Hur, it is inferred 

 that by polis kamarine Eupolemus meant a city devoted to the worship 

 of the moon. But it is much more likely to have meant a city with many 

 vaults or vaulted roofs, seeing that kamara in Greek meant a vaulted 

 chamber ; and, if I mistake not, Orfah has such vaults for the passage of 

 the springs of water for which it is famous. The natural objection that 

 Orfah is a city in Mesopotamia, not in Babylonia proper, would be met by 

 the fact that after the complete subjugation of Mesopotamia by 

 Nabopolassar an early Greek writer might regard it as absorbed into 

 Babylonia. 



