Harran: Encyclopedia - Harran

Harran

Harran, also known as Carrhae, is an archeological site in present day southeastern Turkey, 24 miles (39 kilometers) southeast of Sanli Urfa. In its prime, it controlled the point where the road from Damascus joins the highway between Nineveh and Carchemish. This location gave Harran strategic value from an early date. It is frequently mentioned in Assyrian inscriptions as early as the time of Tiglath-Pileser I, about 1100 BC, under the name Harranu, or "Road"( Akkadian harrānu, road, path, journey ). After the Shupiluliuma-Shattiwazza treaty, Harran was burned by a Hittite army under Piyashshili in the course of the conquest of Hanilgalbat.

Harran is also mentioned in the Hebrew Bible as the place where Terah halted after leaving Ur with his family after Abraham made Ur's king Nimrod angry, a town on the stream Jullab, some nine hours' journey from Edessa (present day Sanli Urfa) in Turkey. The Yahwistic writer (Genesis 27:43) makes it the home of Laban and connects it with Isaac and Jacob. But we cannot thus put Haran in Aram-Naharaim; the home of the Labanites is rather to be looked for in the very similar word Hauran.

During the reign of King Hezekiah, the city rebelled from the Assyrians, who reconquered the city (2 Kings 19:12; Isaiah, 37:12), and deprived it of many privileges that king Sargon II later restored.

Harran was the centre of a considerable commerce, trading with Tyre (Ezekiel 27:23), and one of its specialities was the odoriferous gum derived from the strobus (Pliny, N.H. xii. 40). This was the location of the Battle of Carrhae, where Crassus in his eastern expedition was attacked and captured by the Parthians in 53 BC. One tale claims that the Parthians then executed him by puring molten gold down his throat, which was ironic in the time due to his wealth. However, this story is not corroborated by Plutarch's biography of Crassus, which claims Crassus died in battle. After all the legions were all slain, the legionary eagles were sent back to Rome, covered in Parthian decorations. Centuries later, the emperor Caracalla was murdered here at the instigation of Macrinus (AD 217). The emperor Galerius was defeated by the Sassanids nearby in 296.

Haran was the chief home of the moon-god Sin, whose temple was rebuilt by several kings, among them Assur-bani-pal and Nabonidus, and Herodian (iv. 13, 7) mentions the town as possessing in his day a temple of the moon. In the middle ages it is mentioned as having been the seat of a particular pagan sect, that of the Haranite Sabians, into the period of the Crusades, although it also possessed a bishop over a Christian community. In 1104 it was the site of a battle between the Crusaders and the Seljuk Turks. This city retained its importance down to the period of the Arab ascendancy; but the 13th century Arab historian Abulfeda describes it as having fallen into decay before his time. In the late nineteenth century, it was wholly in ruins.

Harran is famous for its traditional 'beehive' mud houses, constructed entirely without wood. The design of these is thought to have been unchanged for at least 3,000 years, and some were still in use as dwellings until the 1980s. However, those remaining are strictly tourist exhibits, while most of Harran's population lives in a new village about 2 kilometres away from the main site of visitor interest.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Harran", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki