Mesopotamia

Urfa, southeastern Turkey. The city of Urfa, (also called Sanliurfa), is located in the fertile plain of upper Mesopotamia. It is known as the ‘City of Prophets’, reportedly the home of Job, Jethro, and St George, and the birthplace of Abraham. Once a centre of Syrian culture, the city was taken over by the Persians, Arabs, and Ottomans, in succession.

Beehive-shaped mud houses at Harran, southeastern Turkey. Harran (also spelled Haran) is now only a small village, but local ruins show that it was once the site of a fortress and an ancient Mesopotamian university. It is mentioned several times in the Bible, for example as the residence of Abraham before he migrated to Canaan.

The land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, now part of Iraq. The civilizations of Sumer and Babylon flourished here. The Sumerian civilization (3500 BC) may have been the earliest urban civilization. Prior to World War I the area was part of the Turkish Empire, but the British drove the Turks out in October 1918. In 1932 Mesopotamia became part of the newly-established state of Iraq.