Ur of the Chaldees

In 1862, Henry Rawlinson identified Ur Kaśdim with Tell el-Muqayyar near Nasiriyah in the Baghdad Eyalet of the Ottoman Empire (now in Iraq).

[3][4][5][6][7][8] Other sites traditionally thought to be Abraham's birthplace are in the vicinity of the city of Edessa (now Urfa in the Southeastern Anatolia Region of Turkey).

The Septuagint translation of Genesis does not include the term "Ur"; instead it describes the "Land of the Chaldees" (Greek χώρα Χαλδαίων, Chora Chaldaion).

The passage claimed that Abraham was born in the Babylonian city Camarina, which it notes was also called "Uria".

This site is identified by modern scholars with the Sumerian city of Ur located at Tell el-Mukayyar, which in ancient texts was named Uriwa or Urima.

Recent archaeological work focuses on the area of Nasiriyah (in southern Iraq), where the remains of the ancient Ziggurat of Ur stand.

Many Pentateuchal translations, from the Septuagint to some modern English versions, render moledet as "kindred" or "family".

Writing in the 4th century AD, Ammianus Marcellinus in his Rerum Gestarum Libri (chapter VIII) mentions a castle named Ur which lay between Hatra and Nisibis.

A. T. Clay understood this as an identification of Ur Kaśdim, although Marcellinus makes no explicit claim in this regard.

According to some Jewish traditions, this is the site where Abraham was cast into a furnace by Nimrod as punishment for his monotheistic beliefs, but miraculously escaped unscathed.

[22] Islamic tradition holds that the site of Abraham's birth is a cave situated near the center of Şanlıurfa.

[26] According to A. S. Issar, Ur Kasdim is identified with the site of Urkesh – the capital of the Hurrian Kingdom, now in northeastern Syria.