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UR

[flame].

1. ‘Father’ of Eliphal, one of the mighty men of David’s military forces. (1 Chron. 11:26, 35) Ur appears to be the same person as Ahasbai.—2 Sam. 23:34.

2. “Ur of the Chaldeans,” the city in Mesopotamia where Abram’s (Abraham’s) brother Haran (and likely Abraham himself) was born. (Gen. 11:28; Acts 7:2, 4) Jehovah appeared to Abraham and directed him to leave Ur. The Bible, crediting Terah with the move because he was the family head, says that Terah took his son Abraham, his daughter-in-law Sarah and his grandson Lot, moving from Ur to Haran.—Gen. 11:31; 12:1; Neh. 9:7.

Usually Ur is identified with Tell el-Muqayyar on the W bank of the Euphrates some 150 miles (c. 241 kilometers) SE of Babylon. Ruins there cover an area of about 3,000 by 2,400 feet (914 by 732 meters). Once a center of worship of the moon-god Nanna (or Sin), the site’s most prominent feature is still a temple tower or ziggurat some 200 feet long, 150 wide and 70 high (c. 61 by 46 by 21 meters).

In royal tombs at Ur excavators have found many objects of gold, silver, lapis lazuli, and so forth, as well as indications that early Sumerian kings and queens of the city were buried with their retinue of male and female servants.

Ruins of what appear to be private houses excavated at Ur (suggested by some as belonging to the period between the twentieth and sixteenth centuries B.C.E.) were constructed of brick, were plastered and whitewashed, and had thirteen or fourteen rooms surrounding a paved courtyard. Among clay tablets found at the site were some used to teach cuneiform writing. Other tablets indicate that students there had multiplication and division tables and worked at square and cube roots. Many of the tablets are business documents.

From excavations at Ur it thus appears clear that Abraham made notable material sacrifices when leaving that city. But, in faith, the patriarch was “awaiting the city having real foundations, the builder and creator of which city is God.”—Heb. 11:8-10.