Urfa
Urfa, officially called Şanlıurfa, is a city in southeastern Turkey and the capital of Şanlıurfa Province. The city was known as Edessa from Hellenistic times and into Christian times. Urfa is situated on a plain about east of the Euphrates. Its climate features extremely hot, dry summers and cool, moist winters.
About northeast of the city is the famous Neolithic site of Göbekli Tepe, the world's oldest known temple, which was founded in the 10th millennium BC. The area was part of a network of the first human settlements where the agricultural revolution took place. Because of its association with Jewish, Christian, and Islamic history, and a legend according to which it was the hometown of Abraham, Urfa is nicknamed the City of Prophets.
Religion is important in Urfa. The city "has become a center of fundamentalist Islamic beliefs" and "is considered one of the most devoutly religious cities in Turkey".
The city is located 30 miles from the Atatürk Dam, at the heart of the Southeast Anatolia Project, which draws thousands of job-seeking rural villagers to the city every year.
Name
The earliest name of the city was Admaʾ, recorded in Assyrian cuneiform in the Old Assyrian period. It is recorded in Syriac as ܐܕܡܐ Adme.Modern names of the city are likely derived from Urhay or Orhay, the site's Syriac name before the re-foundation of the settlement by Seleucus I Nicator. After the defeat of the Seleucids in the Seleucid–Parthian Wars, Edessa became capital of the Kingdom of Osroene, with a mixed Syriac and Hellenistic culture. The origin of the name of Osroene itself is probably related to Orhay. This originally Aramaic and Syriac name for the city may have been derived from the Persian name Khosrow.
The ancient town was refounded as a Hellenistic military settlement by Seleucus I Nicator in BC, and named Edessa after the ancient capital of Macedonia, perhaps due to its abundant water, just like its Macedonian namesake. It was later renamed Callirrhoe or Antiochia on the Callirhoe in the 2nd century BC.
After Antiochus IV's reign, the name of the city reverted to Edessa, in Greek, and appears in Armenian as Urha or Ourha, in Aramaic as Urhay or Orhay, in local Neo-Aramaic as Urhoy, in Arabic as ar-Ruhā, in the Kurdish language as Riha, Latinized as Rohais, and finally adopted into Turkish as Urfa or Şanlıurfa, its present name.
James Silk Buckingham claimed that in earlier times, the city was known as Ruha, and with the Arabic article, it became Ar-Ruha, evolving into Urha, and eventually Urfa. Carsten Niebuhr observed that Turks called the city El-Rohha in the 18th century, although Buckingham who later visited Urfa, disagreed and noted that all Turks, and most Arabs and Kurds in the surrounding countryside called it Urfa, while a small portion of the Christians called it as the former.
In 1984, the Turkish National Assembly granted Urfa the title "Şanlı", meaning "glorious", in honor of its citizens' resistance against British and French troops at the end of the First World War, hence the present name "Şanlıurfa".
History
Prehistory
Urfa shares the Balikh River Valley region with two other significant Neolithic sites at Nevalı Çori and Göbekli Tepe. Settlements in the area originated around 9000 BC as a PPNA Neolithic sites located near Abraham's Pool.There is no written evidence for earlier settlement at the site, but Urfa's favorable commercial and geographical placement suggests that there was a smaller settlement present prior to 303 BC. Perhaps Orhai's absence from earlier written sources is due to the settlement having been small and unfortified prior to the Seleucid period.
In prehistoric times, the Urfa Region was attractive for human habitation because of its dense grazing areas and the presence of wild animals on migration routes. As a result, the area became densely populated, particularly in the Neolithic period.
In Urfa itself, there was a prehistoric settlement at Yeni Mahalle Höyüğü, located immediately north of Balıklıgöl in the heart of the old town. Now buried under single-story houses, the site was accidentally discovered during road construction in the 1990s and then excavated in 1997 by the Şanlıurfa Museum Directorate. The findings included flint tools, arrowheads dated to the early Pre-Pottery Neolithic B phase, and two round buildings with terrazzo floors. Animal bones found at the site indicate hunting activity, and charred seed samples indicate that the villagers cultivated wheat and barley. The village at Yeni Mahalle is radiocarbon dated to roughly 9400–8600 BCE.
Bronze Age
During the Uruk expansion period, around 3200 BC, the villages of Urfa and Harran began to transform into cities. By the Early Bronze Age Urfa had grown into a walled city of 200ha. This city is located at the archeological site Kazane Tepe adjacent to modern Urfa.A much later artifact is a black stone pedestal with a double bull relief, found at a hill called Külaflı Tepe in the former village of Cavşak in the 1950s when the village was being evacuated to build a base for the Urfa Brigade. The pedestal contains an inscription with an invocation to the god Tarhunza and mentions a city whose name is only partly visible, but which Bahattin Çelik restores as "Umalia", in the country of Bit Adini.
City of Edessa
Urfa was founded as a city under the name Edessa by the Seleucid king Seleucus I Nicator in 302 or 303 BC. Seleucus named the city Edessa after the ancient capital of Macedonia.Ancient sources describe Seleucid Edessa as following the typical plan for Hellenistic military colonies: its streets were laid out in a grid pattern, with four main streets that intersected each other. There were four city gates, and the main citadel was outside the walls. Macedonian soldiers were settled in the new city, but they never formed a majority of its population. The city's culture remained predominantly Semitic, and any Hellenization was minimal.
Edessa was an important commercial center in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC. Previously, the main east-west trade route across Upper Mesopotamia had gone through Harran, but the founding of Edessa caused that route to shift northwards.
In 132 BC, following the decline of the Seleucids, Edessa became the capital of the kingdom of Osrhoene, which was ruled by the Abgarids, an Arabized tribal dynasty with origins in Nisibis. The Abgarids were generally allied with the Parthian Empire and were under Parthian cultural influence as well.
In the early second century AD, Abgar VII supported the Roman emperor Trajan's campaign in Mesopotamia and received him "sumptously" at his court, but later rebelled. In retaliation, the Romans captured and destroyed Edessa, and Abgar VII was killed. The Romans installed a Parthian prince, Parthamaspates, on the Edessan throne as a puppet ruler in 117, but the Abgarids were later restored to power. Similarly, the Parthians captured Edessa in 163 and installed Wa'el bar Sharu as a puppet king. The deposed Ma'nu VIII went to the Romans, who took Edessa in 165 and restored Ma'nu to power. In 166, Osrhoene became a Roman client kingdom.
Ma'nu VIII died in 177 and was succeeded by Abgar VIII, also called Abgar the Great. Abgar was stripped of most of his domains except for Edessa, and Osrhoene became a Roman province, when his ally Pescennius Niger lost the civil war to Septimius Severus. Abgar devoted his remaining time to fostering arts and learning. In 201, much of Edessa was destroyed by a major flood. According to the Chronicle of Edessa, over 2,000 people died. Abgar granted a remission of taxes for people affected by the flood and immediately began a large-scale reconstruction project of the city after the old Seleucid plan. Abgar repaired the old royal palace by the river, which had been damaged by the flood, but he also built a new palace on higher ground.
Ancient Edessa was an eclectic melting pot of different religious groups. Unlike Harran, where the cult of the moon god Sin predominated, the people of Edessa worshipped a whole pantheon of gods that can generally be identified with planets. In addition to polytheists, Edessa also had a prominent Jewish community. Many of Edessa's Jews were merchants, involved in long-distance trade between the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean. By the end of the 2nd century, a small Christian community had appeared in Edessa. Christianity also resonated with several religious themes already present in Edessa – besides the concept of a virgin mother and child, there was also the concept of a divine trinity and a hope for life after death. Edessa's Jewish community was probably partly responsible for the rapid spread of Christianity in the city. Abgar the Great reportedly converted to Christianity around the turn of the 3rd century, which if true would make Edessa the first Christian polity in the world.
More religions joined the mix during the 3rd century. One was the Bardaisanites, founded by the important philosopher Bardaisan who Abgar the Great was a patron of. Another was the Elkesaites, a syncretic religion that combined elements of Christianity, Judaism, and paganism. There was already an active Manichaean community in Edessa during Mani's lifetime; there is a reference in the Cologne Mani Codex to a letter he wrote to his followers in Edessa. Manichaeism's spread to Edessa was attributed to two of Mani's disciples named Addai and Thomas. Edessa's Manichaean community remained prominent until the 5th century.
Roman rule
Abgar the Great died in 212 and was succeeded by Abgar IX, also called Severus as a sign of Roman influence. Abgar IX only reigned for a year – in 213, he was summoned to Rome by the emperor Caracalla, who then had him murdered. In 214, Caracalla made Edessa a Roman colony, officially ending any autonomy the city had. A son of Abgar IX, known as Ma'nu IX, appears to have been nominally a king until 240; he received an embassy from India in 218, during the reign of Elagabalus, but he did nothing else of note. The monarchy seems to have been restored to power at some point – and Abgar IX was apparently king until 248, when the emperor Philip the Arab had him banished after Edessa rebelled.In 260, the Sasanian emperor Shapur I defeated the Romans in the Battle of Edessa and captured the emperor. However, either Shapur never actually captured the city or he only held it for a very short time – it is not listed among the cities he captured in his inscription on the Ka'ba-ye Zartosht, and in the aftermath of the battle he had to bribe Edessa's garrison to let his army pass unmolested.
As a result of Diocletian's reorganization of the empire in 293, a state-run factory was built at Edessa to make weapons and equipment for the soldiers stationed along the border. In 298, after Galerius Maximianus's victory over the Sasanians, Edessa was made capital of the new province of Osrhoene. It served as a military base in the Mesopotamian limes, although it was secondary to Nisibis in that system.