Page 110 - Four Thousand Years Ago by Geoffrey Bibby

length the route between Ur and Harran was well traveled and
well known. It was certainly not the first time that members of
Terah’s family had traversed it. For there were long-standing
commercial connections between the two cities. Both Harran and

Ur were cities dedicated to the worship of the moon-god, Sin. For
centuries past (and for centuries to come) the moon temples
of Ur and Harran were famous throughout the Middle East, and

in the days of temple communism, still only a little over a
hundred years ago, when all commerce and industry was owned
and directed by the college of priests, the two temples of the

moon must have built up a close system of trade. For Harran
was the gathering point foi the mineral wealth of the Turkish
mountains, just as Ur collected the wealth of the Indies.

It was principally the silver of the Taurus mountains which
passed through Harran on its way south; and we know that

silver was traded south from Ur in the ships of the alik Dilmun
to buy copper from Makan and gold from the Indus.
It is practically certain that the trade which finked the two
centers, carrying gold and copper north, and silver south, was at

the time of Abram in the hands of the Amorites. For the route
that trade must follow lay along the valley of the Euphrates, and
since the Amorites had pushed out from the Syrian desert in the

course of the last two lifetimes they had dominated the Euphra­
tes valley all along its length.
The tribe of Terah, moving slowly on their two-month jour­

ney to join their cousins and business associates in the north,
would pass first through the territory of the small Amorite

city-states south of present-day Baghdad, probably camping a
night by one of them, a little village known as Babylon, and call­
ing on its governor, Sumu-abum. And they would go on, entering
some fortnight later the territory of the important kingdom of

Mari, also Amorite and with ties of kinship and mutual interest
with the traders of the Great North Road. A fortnight beyond

Mari they would come to the confluence of the Euphrates and
the Balikh, and, turning north along the valley of the Balikh, they

would reach Harran in less than a week.
The tribe of Terah stayed in Harran, it would seem, for some
years. It is unlikely that the trading connections with Ur were