Where the Turk’s My Bokeh?!?

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Where the Turk’s My Bokehi!i

Harran

Harran is an archaeological site of great value as the ancient city was the centre of a considerable commerce, trading with Tyre and one of its specialities was the odoriferous gum derived from the stobrum tree.

Ancient Harran

The legends surrounding Harran go back to the beginning of man; it is said that Adam and Eve set foot here when they were expelled from the Garden of Eden.

Historical Harran is very, very ancient too. This was a centre of Mesopotamian culture which in its prime 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 in scriptures

 According to the book of Genesis, Abraham passed through Haran, which some scholars identify as the locale of the modern Harran. The Hebrew Bible also identifies Haran as the place where Terah halted after leaving Ur with his family. Genesis makes Harran the home of Laban and connects it with Isaac and Jacob.

 Islamic tradition links Harran to Aran, the brother of Abraham.

Harran was the chief home of the Mesopotamian moon-goddess Sin, whose temple was rebuilt by several kings, among them Assur-bani-pal and Nabonidus, and Herodian mentions the town as possessing in his day a temple of the moon.

During the reign of King Hezekiah, the city rebelled from the Assyrians, who reconquered the city and deprived it of many privileges, which king Sargon II later restored.

Harran in Scriptures 

According to the book of Genesis, Abraham passed through Haran, which some scholars identify as the locale of the modern Harran. The Hebrew Bible also identifies Haran as the place where Terah halted after leaving Ur with his family. Genesis makes Harran the home of Laban and connects it with Isaac and Jacob.

Islamic tradition links Harran to Aran, the brother of Abraham.

Harran was the chief home of the Mesopotamian moon-goddess Sin, whose temple was rebuilt by several kings, among them Assur-bani-pal and Nabonidus, and Herodian  mentions the town as possessing in his day a temple of the moon.

During the reign of King Hezekiah, the city rebelled from the Assyrians, who reconquered the city and deprived it of many privileges, which king Sargon II later restored.

Medes, Persians, Greeks and Romans

 During the fall of the Assyrian Empire, Harran became the stronghold of its last king, Ashur-uballit II, being besieged and conquered by Nabopolassar of Babylon at 609 BC. Harran became part of Median Empire after the fall of Assyria, and subsequently passed to the Persian Achaemenid dynasty. The city remained Persian until in 331 BC when the soldiers of the Macedonian conqueror Alexander the Great entered the city.

After the death of Alexander on 11 June 323 BC, 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, the Seleucid empire, and capital of a province called Osrhoene (the Greek rendering of the old name Urhai). For a century-and-a-half, the town flourished, and it became independent when the Parthian dynasty of Persia occupied Babylonia. The Parthian and Seleucid kings were both happy with a buffer state, and the dynasty of the Arabian Abgarides, technically a vassal of the Parthian "king of kings", was to rule Osrhoene for centuries.

This was the location of the Battle of Carrhae, where Crassus in his eastern expedition was attacked and captured by the Parthian general Surena in 53 BC.

Centuries later, the emperor Caracalla was murdered here at the instigation of Macrinus .The emperor Galerius was defeated by the Parthian successors, the Sassanid dynasty of Persia, nearby in 296 AD. The city remained under Persian control, until the fall of the Sassanids to Arabs in 651 AD.

Christianity and Sabianism

 Harran was a centre of Christianity from early on, the first place where purpose-built churches were constructed openly. However although a bishop resided in the city, many people of Harran retained their ancient pagan faith during the Christian period and thus the Sabian culture was born here in Harran.

 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’ (Edessa, present day Urfa) and ar-Raqqah 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 passing through Harran on his way to a campaign against Byzantium who forced the Harranians to convert to either one of the ‘religions of the book’, meaning Judaism, Christianity or Islam. The people of Harran identified themselves with the Sabians in order to fall under the protection of Islam. Sabians were mentioned in the Quran but those were a group of Gnostic Mandaeans living in southern Iraq, but extinct at the time of al-Ma’mun. The Harranian Sabians and the ones mentioned in the Quran have nothing in common.

Islam’s first university

During the late 8th and 9th century Harran was a centre for translating works of astronomy, philosophy, natural sciences and medicine from Greek to Arabic, bringing the knowledge of the classical world to the emerging Arabic speaking civilization. Baghdad came to this work later than Harran. Many important scholars of natural science, astronomy and medicine originate from Harran, including possibly the alchemist Geber.

The 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 starving ‘Alid-Shiite population with impoverished urban Muslim militias. In 1059-60 the temple was rebuilt into a fortified residence of the Numayrids, an Arab tribe assuming power in the Diyar Mudar (western Jazira) during the 11th century. The Zangid ruler Nur al-Din Mahmud transformed the residence into a strong fortress.

The Crusades   

During the Crusades , on May 7, 1104 a decisive battle was fought in the Balikh valley, commonly known as the Battle of Harran. However, according to Matthew of Edessa the actual location of the battle lies two days away from Harran. Albert of Aachen and Fulcher of Chartres locate the battle ground in the plain opposite to the city of ar-Raqqah. During the battle, Baldwin of Bourcq, count of Edessa, was captured by Seljuq troops. After his release Baldwin became king of Jerusalem.

At the end of 12th century Harran served together with ar-Raqqah as residence of Ayyubid princes. The Ayyubid ruler of the Jazira, al-’Adil Abu Bakr, again strengthened the fortifications of the castle. In the 1260s the city was completely destroyed and abandoned during the Mongol wars. The father of the famous Hanbalite scholar Ibn Taymiyah was a refugee from Harran, settling in Damascus. The 13th century Arab historian Abulfeda describes the city in ruins.

Modern Harran

 Harran is famous for its traditional ‘beehive’ adobe houses, constructed entirely without wood. The design of these makes them cool inside (essential in this part of the world) 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 BC burial mound continue under archaeologist Dr Nurettin Yardımcı.

The new village is poor and life is hard in the hot weather on this plain. The people here are ethnic Arabs and live by long-established traditions. It is believed that these ethnic Arabs were settled here during the 18th century by the Ottoman empire. Typically families consist of 10-15 children, who will gather round visitors to sell brochures about the site or bunches of herbs (or to beg for small gifts like hair-bands or lipstick). They will also trail you round the site acting as ‘guides’. The women of the village are tattooed and dressed in traditional Bedouin cloths.

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. But the plain is irrigated by the recent Southeastern Anatolia Project and is becoming green again. Cotton and rice can now be grown.

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Gulls (often informally Seagulls) are birds in the family Laridae. They are most closely related to the terns (family Sternidae) and only distantly related to auks, and skimmers, and more distantly to the waders. Until recently, most gulls were placed in the genus Larus, but this arrangement is now known to be polyphyletic, leading to the resurrection of several genera.[1]

They are typically medium to large birds, usually grey or white, often with black markings on the head or wings. They typically have harsh wailing or squawking calls. They have stout, longish bills, and webbed feet. Gull species range in size from the Little Gull, at 120 g (4.2 oz) and 29 cm (11.5 inches), to the Great Black-backed Gull, at 1.75 kg (3.8 lbs) and 76 cm (30 inches).

Seagull Over The Marmara Sea-Istanbul, Turkey

Silk Road

Silk is also maintained the identification of Eastern Culture by Western societies.

Transportation of silk and spice of east via caravans, is formed the commercial roads reaching to Europe from China. In Medieval Age, commercial caravans, had started to their voyages from today's Chinese Xian city, and reach to the Kashgar city of Uzbekistan; they were reaching to Hazar Sea from Afghanistan plains with following the first one of the roads separated into two there; and to Anatolia over Iran with climbing over Karakorum Mountains with other one. They were going to Europe via road over Thrace or via maritime lines from Anatolia.

In this commercial movement improving from east to west, a road network, used since previous ages, had been benefited. These thousands of kilometers long caravan roads, which allow cultural relations between continents besides dense transportation of silk, porcelain, paper, spice and jewelry, are named as "Silk Road" in the course of time.

Silk Road, beyond being a commercial road connecting Asia to Europe, is holding the signs of cultures, religions and races, who lived in the region for 2000 years, and serves an extraordinary history and cultural wealth. After gaining of independence of Middle Asia Turkish Republics, re – animation of silk road both as a commercial road and also a historical and cultural value is considered, and works for protection and existence of structures which are constructed throughout this road but not used today with giving them new functions, is commenced.

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