Page 17 - Edessa, 'The Blessed City'-01, by J. B. Segal (Oxford, 1970). Chapters 1-3

4 THE BEGINNINGS
debouched from the mountains into the plain at this spot. Thence it continued
southwards to Harran and along the river Balikh, across the Euphrates, and
beyond to the great cities of Syria in the west and south. At Orhay the
north-south road meets an east-west road which linked Nisibis, and beyond
Nisibis, the Iranian countries and India and China in the east with the fords
of the Euphrates in the west. Along this road caravans carried, in Seleucid
and also, we may presume, in pre-Seleucid times, spices and gems and
muslin from India, and silk from China to the populous towns of Asia Minor
and the Mediterranean seaboard.
The region, then, within this great curve of the Euphrates, played a sig-
nificant part in the movement of trade and conquest from the riparian lands
of the Tigris to the Euphrates and Syria. We expect to find allusions in
cuneiform records. In the third millennium, Bilak (probably a city on the
river Balikh) provided wine, according to texts of Lagash; and the town
Ballihu was among the cities captured by Nabopolassar at the end of the
Babylonian kingdom. Duru, on the river Gullab, about twenty kilometres
east of Orhay, was subject to the Assyrians in the ninth to eighth centuries
B.C. Campaigns in which Ashurnasirpal (884-859 B.C.) subjugated the Ara-
maean tribes of this area, and hunted lions by the Balikh and wild boars by
the Euphrates, are recorded on the gates newly discovered at Balawat near
Mosul.1 They mention tribute paid by the city of Serug. The successor of
Ashurnasirpal, Shalmaneser III, captured the cities on the Balikh called
Kitlala and Til-sha-mar-ahi (or Til-mar-ahi).
Our early texts refer most frequently, however, to Harran, the city to which,
according to the Bible, Abram and Sarai came, and whence Isaac and his son
Jacob took their wives. The moon god of Harran, Sin, was called upon to
ratify treaties as early as the nineteenth century B.C. and the fourteenth
century B.C., and as far away as north Syria in the eighth century. The temple
of Sin was restored by Shalmaneser III in the ninth century, two centuries
later by Ashurbanipal (whom Sin and Ningal 'in the fidelity of their heart
crowned with the lordly tiara'), and finally by Nabonidus in the twilight of
the Babylonian empire. The letters from Mari show the area around the
Balikh to be occupied in the nineteenth century B.C. by a confederation of
semi-nomad tribes, who were especially active in the region of Harran.
Raids were frequent, safety was to be found only in the towns. Fortresses
were garrisoned largely by local troops under loyal sheikhs. Shamshi-Addu,
ruler of Assyria, mounted a carefully organized expedition to conquer the
region of Harran—possibly to keep open the trade route. Five centuries later,
the Assyrian Adadnirari I annexed the province under a turtanu. With Ashur,
Harran in the tenth century enjoyed exemption from taxation, and the
privilege was restored by Sargon in the late eighth century. It was a fief in
1 See the reference on p. 18 n. 7 below.

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