Page 16 - Edessa, 'The Blessed City'-01, by J. B. Segal (Oxford, 1970). Chapters 1-3

THE BABYLONIAN-ASSYRIAN PERIOD 3

Orhay has been identified with the Biblical Ur of the Chaldees, not only
by scholars but also by modern worthies of Urfa.1 There is no satisfactory
evidence for this hypothesis. It was not held by the bishop of the city who
acted as cicerone to Egeria, the pilgrim abbess from Aquitania, in probably
the fifth century—although he knew that she wished to be shown the sites
with Biblical associations, and was about to visit the shrines of Abraham at
nearby Harran. In fact, at Harran, Egeria was informed that Nisibis was
five stages distant and Ur of the Chaldees a further five stages—and in the
hands of the Persians. Nor is it mentioned by the writers of Christian martyr-
ologies and the poets of Orhay in the fourth, fifth, or sixth centuries, who
lost no opportunity to vaunt the pre-eminence of their city. The earliest
Syriac chronicler to identify Orhay with Ur of the Chaldees appears to be
the Jacobite Metropolitan, Basil bar Shumana, the friend of Zangi, who
conquered Edessa in the twelfth century. And we may note that if Ur of
the Chaldees were Orhay, the first stage of migration of Terah and Abra-
ham, one of the most significant migrations of antiquity, would then be
reduced to a journey of fifty kilometres, almost to the status of a Sabbath-
day walk.
There were other towns in ancient Mesopotamia called Uru, or Ur-a. One
appears in records of Ugarit as subject to the Hittites, another was clearly in
north-eastern Mesopotamia. We read of a 'great Ur' and a 'little Ur'. They
are scarcely to be identified with our Orhay; as the Metropolitan Basil
perceived, the element 'Ur' may mean no more than 'city'.2 Indeed, the
readiness of St. Ephraim and others to equate Orhay with Erekh would
rather suggest that the early form of the name may have been URH or URH
or URK.3
However this may be, it can be assumed that the persistent tradition of an
early, certainly pre-Seleucid, foundation of the city is probable, if not certain.
It could hardly be otherwise if one considers the geographical situation of
Orhay. No power, seeking to maintain control of the region, could afford to
neglect this site. It lay at the junction of ancient highways. One, the road
from Armenia, descended from the great centre of Amid (Diyarbakr), and

1 The Imam of the HalilCamii expressed this 2 Basil, cited by Michael the Syrian, dec-
opinion to the present writer in 1959. In 1956 lares: 'After the flood, in the time of Noah,
another respected citizen of Urfa declared that King Nimrod . . . built Orhay. He called it
the name Urfa was derived from Orpheus of "Ur", that is, "town", and as theChaldaeans
Greek mythology. The present writer scoffed lived there he added "hay", that is "that town
at the theory. A few days later he discovered [of the Chaldaeans]", just as Urshalem
the Orpheus mosaic in a cave cut out of the. (Jerusalem) signifies "town of Shalem".'
rock at Urfa (see p. 52 below)! He has learnt 3 We may note that in the inscription of
to be less ready to scoff—but the theory of the Shahpuhr I the name Orhay in Mid. Persian is
derivation from Orpheus must nevertheless be [']WLH'Y and in Parthian 'WRH'Y. So Har-
rejected because Urfa as the city's name is not ran is [HR]'NY in Mid. Persian and H'RN in
clearly attested before the Turkish period; Parthian, in Greek it is Kccppoti; Aleppo is
see p. 255. HRPY in Parthian.

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