HARRAN
![](images/harranlocation.jpg)
Location
of Harran in Turkey
![](images/Harran_beehive_houses_(2).JPG)
Harran
Beehive Houses
Harran,
also known as Carrhae, was a major ancient city in Upper Mesopotamia
whose site is in the modern village of Harran, Turkey, 44 kilometers
southeast of Sanliurfa. The location is in the Harran district of
Sanliurfa Province.
The
archaeological remains are in the ancient Harran, a major commercial,
cultural, science and religious center first inhabited in the Chalcolithic
Age (6th millennium BCE). The city was called Hellenopolis (Ancient
Greek Meaning "Greek city") in the Early Christian period.
It is mentioned, in Movses Khorenatsi's and Mikayel Chamchian's
History of Armenia, as being under the authority of prince Sanadroug,
the sovereignty of which he assigned to Queen Helena of Adiabene.
Names
:
• Akkadian : Harranu
• Arabic : Harran
• Armenian : Harran
• Byzantine Greek : Kárrhai
• Hebrew : Haran
• Latin : Carrhae
• Persian : Harrân, Karrân
• Turkish : Harran
•
Vedic Aryan : Marut
History :
The
settlement that would become Harran began as a typical Halaf culture
village established circa 6200 BCE as part of the spread of agricultural
villages across Western Asia. From its location at the confluence
of the Jullab and Balikh rivers it gradually grew in size until
a period of rapid urbanization in the following Uruk period. During
the Early Bronze Age (3000-2500 BCE) Harran grew into a walled city.
The city-state of Harran was part of a network of city-states,
called the Kish civilization, centered in the Syrian Levant and
upper Mesopotamia. The rise of Harran closely mirrored the similar
rise of its trade partners, Ebla, Ugarit, and Alalakh, in a process
called secondary urbanization. Its life as a sovereign city-state
came to an end when it was annexed into the Akkadian Empire and
its successor, the Neo-Sumerian Empire. After the fall of Ur it
was again independent for a time, until it was abandoned in the
Amorite expansion in 1800 BC. It was later rebuilt as an Assyrian
city of Harranu, meaning 'cross-roads' in the Akkadian language.
Bronze
Age :
The earliest records of Harran come from Ebla tablets (late 3rd
millennium BCE). From these, it is known that an early king or mayor
of Harran had married an Eblaite princess, Zugalum, who then became
"queen of Harran", and whose name appears in a number
of documents. [citation needed] It appears that Harran remained
a part of the regional Eblaite kingdom for some time thereafter.[citation
needed]
Royal
letters from the city of Mari on the middle of the Euphrates, have
confirmed that the area around the Balikh river remained occupied
in c. the 19th century BCE. A confederation of semi-nomadic tribes
was especially active around the region near Harran at that time.
A
temple of the moon god Sin was established sometime at the end of
the Neo-Sumerian Empire (circa 2000 BCE). This temple was called
the House of Rejoicing (Sumerian: E-hul-hul, Cuneiform: E2.HUL2.HUL2).
The ruins of this temple are currently located under the palace
of Caliph Marwan II (744-750 CE). Although the exact date of establishment
is uncertain, it may have begun as a satellite to the primary moon
temple of Nanna in Ur, and then absorbed a refugee priesthood fleeing
Ur during warfare in the Isin-Larsa period. Attestation of the temple
existence first appears at time of Hammurapi, because he is recorded
as signing a treaty there. In fact, Sin of Harran was guarantor
of the word of kings between 1900-900 BCE, as his name is witness
to the forging of international treaties.
Old
Assyrian period :
![](images/Syria2mil.jpg)
Harran
and other major cities of ancient Syria
![](images/Harran_beehive_houses_(3).JPG)
Harran
beehive houses
![](images/640px-Historical_Harran_University.jpg)
Ruins
of the Harran University
By
the 20th century BCE, Harran was established as a merchant outpost
of the Old Assyrian Empire due to its ideal location. The community,
well established before then, was situated along a trade route between
the Mediterranean and the plains of the middle Tigris. It lay directly
on the road from Antioch eastward to Nisibis and Nineveh. The Tigris
could be followed down to the delta to Babylon. The 4th-century
Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus (325/330–after 391) said,
"From there (Harran) two different royal highways lead to Persia:
the one on the left through Neo-Assyrian Adiabene and over the Tigris;
the one on the right, through Assyria and across the Euphrates."
Not only did Harran have easy access to both the Assyrian and Babylonian
roads, but also to north road to the Euphrates that provided easy
access to Malatiyah and Asia Minor.
According
to Roman authors such as Pliny the Elder, even through the classical
period, Harran maintained an important position in the economic
life of Assyria.
In
its prime Harran was a major Assyrian city which 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. Because Harran had an abundance of goods that passed
through its region, it became a target for raids. In the 18th century,
Assyrian king Shamshi-Adad I (1813–1781 BCE) launched an expedition
to secure the Harranian trade route.
Hittite
period :
After the Suppiluliuma I–Shattiwaza treaty in the 14th century
BCE between the Hittite Empire and Mitanni, Harran was burned by
a Hittite army under Piyashshili during its invasion of Mitanni.
Middle
and Neo-Assyrian periods :
In the 13th century BCE, Assyrian king Adad-Nirari I reported that
he conquered the "fortress of Kharani" and annexed it
as a province. It is frequently mentioned in Assyrian inscriptions
as early as the time of Tiglath-Pileser I, about 1100 BCE, under
the name Harranu (Akkadian harranu, "road, path; campaign,
journey"). Tiglath-Pileser had a fortress there, and mentioned
that he was pleased with the abundance of elephants in the region.
10th-century
BCE inscriptions reveal that Harran had some privileges of fiscal
exemption and freedom from certain forms of military obligations.
It was even termed the "free city of Harran". During the
Neo-Assyrian Empire, Shalmaneser III restored the Temple of Sin
in the 9th century BCE, and it was restored again by Ashurbanipal
circa 550 BCE. However, in 763 BCE, Harran was sacked during a Harranian
rebellion against Assyrian control that resulted in the loss of
Harran's privileges. It was not until Sargon II restored order in
the late 8th century BCE that those privileges were restored.
Neo-Babylonian
period :
During the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, Harran became the stronghold
of its last king, Ashur-uballit II, who had retreated from Nineveh
when it was sacked by Nabopolassar of Babylon and his Median allies
in 612 BCE. Harran was besieged and conquered by Nabopolassar and
Cyaxares in 610 BCE. It was briefly retaken by Ashur-uballit II
and his Egyptian allies in 609 BCE, before it finally fell to the
Medes and Babylonians in 605 BCE.[contradictory]
The
last king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, Nabonidus, also originated
from Harran, as substantiated by evidence from the temple stele
of his mother Adad-Guppi, who was of Assyrian origin. Nabonidus
made a substantial expansion to the Temple of Sin, and it is from
this phase of the temple's operation that it became a famous center
of astronomy and knowledge in classical antiquity. The city became
a bastion for the worship of the moon god Sin during the rule of
Nabonidus in 556–539 BCE, much to the consternation of the
city of Babylon in the south, where Marduk remained the primary
deity.[better source needed]
Persian
period :
Harran became part of the Median Empire after the fall of Assyria,
and subsequently passed to the Persian Achaemenid Empire in the
6th century BCE. It became part of the Persian province of Athura,
the Persian word for Assyria. The city remained in Persian hands
until 331 BCE, when the soldiers of the Macedonian conqueror Alexander
the Great entered the city.
Seleucid
period :
After the death of Alexander the Great on June 11, 323 BCE, the
city was contested by his successors: Perdiccas, Antigonus Monophthalmus,
and Eumenes visited the city, but eventually it became part of the
realm of Seleucus I Nicator, of the Seleucid Empire, and capital
of a province called Osrhoene (the Greek rendering of the old name
Urhai). For one and a half centuries, the town flourished, and Osrhoene
became independent when the Persian Parthian Empire occupied Babylonia.
The Parthian and Seleucid kings were both happy with a buffer state,
and the Arabian Abgarid dynasty, technically a vassal of the Parthian
"king of kings", ruled Osrhoene for centuries. The main
language spoken in Oshroene was Aramaic.
Roman–Sassanid
period :
In Roman times, Harran was known as Carrhae and was the location
of the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BCE, in which the Parthians, commanded
by general Surena, defeated a large Roman army under the command
of Crassus, who was killed.
Centuries
later, the emperor Caracalla was murdered here in 217 CE, probably
at the instigation of Macrinus. In the 3rd century CE the region
was a frontier province of the Roman Empire, being the location
for major wars between Rome and Persia. The emperor Galerius was
defeated nearby by the Parthians' successors, the Persian Sassanid
Empire, in 296 CE.
Post–classical
period :
The city swapped ownership between the Sassanid Empire and the Roman
Empire and the Romans' successor, the Byzantine Empire, on multiple
occasions from the 4th century to the 6th century. The Sassanid
general Shahrbaraz conquered Osrhoene one last time for the Sassanids
around 610. The city came under Byzantine control for a short time
after the successful offensive of emperor Heraclius in the 620s,
before it was taken over by the Rashidun Caliphate. In 640, Carrhae
was conquered by the Muslim Arab general 'Iyad b. Ghanm.
Hermeticism
:
"the Harranians who were the principal inheritors in the Middle
East of what has been called "Oriental Pythagoreanism"
and who were the guardians and propagators of Hermeticism in the
Islamic world." They practiced "the religion of the heirs
of the prophet Idris".
—
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Early Islamic Harran :
At the beginning of the Islamic period, Harran was located in the
land of the Mudar tribe (Diyar Mudar), the western part of northern
Mesopotamia (Jazira). Along with ar-Ruha' (Sanliurfa) and Raqqa
it was one of the main cities in the region. During the reign of
the Umayyad caliph Marwan II, Harran became the seat of the caliphal
government of the Islamic empire stretching from Spain to Central
Asia.
It
was allegedly the Abbasid caliph al-Ma'mun who, while passing through
Harran on his way to a campaign against the Byzantine Empire, forced
the Harranians to convert to one of the "Religions of the Book",
meaning Judaism, Christianity, or Islam. The pagan people of
Harran identified themselves with the Sabians in order to fall under
the protection of Islam. Aramaean and Assyrian Christians remained
Christian. Sabians were mentioned in the Qur'an, but they were the
group that later mixed Gnostic ideas with their religion and became
Mandaeans (a Gnostic sect). The Harranians may have identified themselves
as Sabians in order to retain their religious beliefs.
During
the late 8th and 9th centuries, Harran was a centre for translating
works of astronomy, philosophy, natural sciences, and medicine from
Greek to Syriac by Assyrians, and thence to Arabic, bringing the
knowledge of the classical world to the emerging Arabic-speaking
civilization in the south. Baghdad came to this work later than
Harran. Many important scholars of natural science, astronomy, and
medicine originated from Harran.
End
of the Sabians :
In 1032 or 1033, the temple of the Sabians was destroyed and the
urban community extinguished by an uprising of the rural 'Alid-Shiite
population and impoverished Muslim militias. In 1059–60, the
temple was rebuilt into a fortified residence by the Numayrid prince
Mani ibn Shabib. The Numayrids were an Arab tribe that dominated
the Diyar Mudar (western Jazira) during the 11th century and had
ruled Harran more or less continuously since 990. The Zangid ruler
Nur al-Din Mahmud transformed the residence into a strong fortress.
Crusades
:
During the Crusades, a decisive battle commonly known as the Battle
of Harran was fought in the Balikh River valley on May 7, 1104.
However, according to Matthew of Edessa, the actual location of
the battle was two days away from Harran. Albert of Aachen and Fulcher
of Chartres located the battleground in the plain opposite to the
city of Raqqa. During the battle, Baldwin of Bourcq, Count of Edessa,
was captured by troops of the Great Seljuq Empire. After his release,
Baldwin became King of Jerusalem.
At
the end of 12th century, Harran served together with Raqqa as a
residence of Kurdish Ayyubid princes. The Ayyubid ruler of the Jazira,
Al-Adil I, again strengthened the fortifications of the castle.
In the 1260s, the city was completely destroyed and abandoned during
the Mongol invasions of Syria. The father of the famous Hanbali
scholar Ibn Taymiyyah was a refugee from Harran, settling in Damascus.
The 13th-century Kurdish historian Abu al-Fida describes the city
as being in ruins. The early 14th-century traveler Jordanus devotes
Chapter 10 of his Mirabilis to "Aran", which most likely
is Harran. The entire chapter reads: "Here Followeth Concerning
the Land of Aran. Concerning Aran I say nothing at all, seeing that
there is nothing worth noting."
Modern
Harran :
![](images/640px-Harran2.jpg)
Traditional
mud brick "beehive" houses in the village of Harran, Turkey
![](images/Harran_beehive_houses_(1).JPG)
Harran
beehive houses
![](images/Harran_main_channel-GAP.jpg)
Harran
main channel, built as a part of the GAP Project
Harran is famous for its traditional "beehive" adobe houses,
constructed entirely without wood. The design of these makes them
cool inside, suiting the climatic needs of the region, and is thought
to have been unchanged for at least 3,000 years. Some were still
in use as dwellings until the 1980s. However, those remaining today
are strictly tourist exhibits, while most of Harran's population
lives in a newly built small village about 2 kilometres away from
the main site.
At
the historical site, the ruins of the city walls and fortifications
are still in place, with one city gate standing, along with some
other structures. Excavations of a nearby 4th century BCE burial
mound continue under archaeologist Nurettin Yardimci.
The
demographics of the village today are made up mostly of ethnic Arabs.
It is believed that the ancestors of the villagers were settled
here during the 18th century by the Ottoman Empire. The women of
the village often have tattoos and are dressed in traditional Bedouin
clothes. There are some Assyrian villages in the general area.
By
the late 1980s, the large plain of Harran had fallen into disuse
as the streams of Cüllab and Deysan, its original water supply,
had dried up. However, the plain is now irrigated by the recent
Southeastern Anatolia Project, allowing cotton and rice to be grown
in the area once again.
Politics
:
![](images/sanliurfa_districts.png)
Districts
of Sanliurfa
In the local elections of March 2019, Mahmut Özyavuz was elected
Mayor. Ömer Faruk Çelik was appointed District Governor
as representative of the state.
Religion
:
The city was the chief home of the Mesopotamian moon god Sin, under
the Assyrians and Neo-Babylonians / Chaldeans and even into Roman
times.
According
to an early Arabic work known as Kitab al-Magall or the Book of
Rolls (part of Clementine literature), Harran was one of the cities
built by Nimrod (Daksh / Bakus), when Peleg was 50 years old. The
Syriac Cave of Treasures (c. 350) contains a similar account of
Nimrod's building Harran and the other cities, but places the event
when Reu was 50 years old. The Cave of Treasures adds an ancient
legend that not long thereafter, Tammuz was pursued to Harran by
his wife's lover, B'elshemin, and that he (Tammuz) met his fate
there when the city was then burnt.
The
pagan residents of Harran also maintained the tradition well into
the 10th century AD, [citation needed] of being the site of Tammuz'
death, and would conduct elaborate mourning rituals for him each
year, in the month bearing his name.
The
Christian historian Bar Hebraeus (13th century), mentions in his
Chronography that Harran had been built by Cainan (the father of
Abraham's ancestor Shelah in some accounts), and had been named
for another son of Cainan called Harran.
Sin's
temple was rebuilt by several kings, among them the Assyrian Assur-bani-pal
(7th century BCE) and the Neo-Babylonian Nabonidus (6th century
BCE). Herodian (iv. 13, 7) mentions the town as possessing in his
day a temple of the moon.
Harran
was a centre of Assyrian Christianity from early on, and was the
first place where purpose-built churches were constructed openly.
However, many people of Harran retained their ancient pagan faith
during the Christian period, and ancient Mesopotamian/Assyrian gods
such as Sin and Ashur were still worshipped for a time.
Carrhae
was the seat of a Christian diocese before the First Council of
Nicaea of 325, which was attended by its bishop Gerontius. In 361,
its bishop Barses was transferred to Edessa, the capital of the
Roman province of Osrhoene and therefore the metropolitan see of
which the bishopric of Carrhae was a suffragan. The names of another
eleven bishops of Carrhae, including that of Abraham of Carrhae,
are known from then down to Theodore Abu Qurrah, bishop of Carrhae
from before 787 to after 813, and the writer of many treatises in
Syriac and Arabic. After him, the see passed into the hands of Non-Chalcedonian
Jacobite bishops, of whom Michael the Syrian names seventeen who
lived between the 8th and the 12th century. No longer a residential
bishopric, Carrhae is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular
see.
Harran
in scriptures :
![](images/640px-francesco_bassano_-_abra.jpg)
Abraham
departs out of Haran by Francesco Bassano
Harran is, by virtually all scholars, associated with the biblical
place Haran (Hebrew: transliterated: Charan). Prior to Sennacherib's
reign (704–681 BCE), Harran rebelled against the Assyrians,
who reconquered the city (see 2 Kings 19:12 and Isaiah 37:12) and
deprived it of many privileges – which King Sargon II later
restored.
Biblical
Haran was where Terah, his son Abram (Abraham), his nephew Lot,
and Abram's wife Sarai settled en route to Canaan, coming from Ur
of the Chaldees (Genesis 11:26–32). The region of this Haran
is referred to variously as Paddan Aram and Aram Naharaim. Genesis
27:43 makes Haran the home of Laban and connects it with Isaac and
Jacob: it was the home of Isaac's wife Rebekah, and their son Jacob
spent twenty years in Haran working for his uncle Laban (cf. Genesis
31:38&41).
Very
little is known about the pre-mediaeval levels of Harran, especially
for the patriarchal times. See Lloyd and Brice.
Archaeology
:
T. E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia") surveyed the ancient
Harran site. Decades later, in 1950, Seton Lloyd conducted a three-week
archaeological survey there. An Anglo–Turkish excavation was
begun in 1951, ending in 1956 with the death of D. S. Rice. Another
dig occurred in 1959.
"The
grand Mosque of Harran is the oldest mosque built in Anatolia as
a part of the Islamic architecture. Also known as the Paradise Mosque,
this monument was built by the last Ummayad caliph Mervan II between
the years 744–750. The entire plan of the mosque which has
dimensions of 104×107 m, along with its entrances, was unearthed
during the excavations led by Dr Nurettin Yardimer since 1983. The
excavations are currently being carried out also outside the northern
and western gates. The grand Mosque, which has remained standing
up until today, with its 33.30 m tall minaret, fountain, mihrab,
and eastern wall, has gone through several restoration processes".
Excavations
in Harran from 2012 to 2013 have focussed on the walls, the mound
in the centre of the city and the Castle (kale). In 2012 and 2013,
the Sanliurfa Museum Directorate, with Professor Mehmet Önal
(Professor of Archaeology at Harran University) acting as consultant,
carried out excavation works for restoration purposes on the western
part of the city wall, uncovering the walls, towers and bastions.
In excavations in the northern part of the Castle, a gallery and
crenellated corridor were discovered on the west side. Near the
south-east gate, a Greek inscription was found set in a wall and
the remains of an inscribed pink marble ambo were found in the spolia
infill of a wall in of the main west entrance-tower. In 2014, following
a decision of the Council of Ministers and courtesy of the Ministry
of Culture and Tourism, further excavation work was conducted, again
under the direction of Professor Önal. In these works, near
Harran's Great Mosque, the Bazaar Bathhouse, the Eastern Bazaar,
the Vaulted Road Bazaar, Public Toilets and a perfumery shop and
workshop were uncovered. In the Eastern Bazaar many fragments of
glass lamps, mortar and fallen shelves were found in one shop, while
in another scales, weights and metal artifacts were recovered and
in the perfumery hundreds of sphero-conical vessels were found,
having fallen from the shelves. In 2016, excavations were carried
out on the city wall (west of the southern, "Raqqa" Gate),
revealing part of the wall and leading to the discovery of a broken
statue of a woman with a Syriac inscription and a male relief, both
used as spolia in the wall. In the 2014–2016 excavations carried
out in the west side of the Castle, a crenellated corridor belonging
to a second defense system adjacent to the wall of the Castle (between
the polygonal and rectangular towers) was uncovered. The excavations
in 2017–2018 in the southern part of the Castle located its
bathhouse on the second storey. The bathhouse is well preserved,
with a cold room (frigidarium), dressing room, warm room (tepidarium),
hot room (caldarium), hypocaust and furnace (praefurnium). Excavations
were also carried out on the north-west of the mound at the centre
of the site, where houses of the Zengid and Ayyubid periods, pottery,
coins etc. were found in the upper layers, and mudbrick walls, figurines
and pottery sherds belonging to the Bronze Age in the lower layers.
On the east of the mound, a cuneiform brick of Iron Age date was
found in the upper layers and mud-brick walls of the Bronze Age
in the lower layers, as well as the skeletons of a woman and children,
terra-cotta figurines, Chalcolithic stamp seals, ceramic pieces,
etc. In 2019, a hall to the north of the Castle bathhouse and another
crenellated corridor in front of the south-east gate were partially
exposed. The excavations planned for 2020 will focus on the Castle,
eastern part of Great Mosque and the central mound.
Source
:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harran