The New International Encyclopædia/Haran

HA′RAN, or CHARRAN, kǎr′rǎn (Ass. Kharranu, road). A city in the north of Mesopotamia, and southeast of Edessa, at the junction of the Damascus road with the highway from Nineveh to Carchemish. For the Assyrians it became a strategic position of first-rate importance, and is mentioned in inscriptions as early as the time of Tiglathpileser I., about 1100 B.C. Sargon II. (B.C. 721-705) refers to his having restored the ancient privileges of the place, and later kings, like Assurbanipal, devoted themselves to the restoration of the temple to the moon-god, which enjoyed a high reputation as a place of pilgrimage. Haran, the Carrhæ of the Greeks and Romans, became, by virtue of its situation, the centre of considerable commerce. It was here that the Roman general Crassus, in his eastern expedition, was attacked and slain by the Parthians (B.C. 53), and here also the Emperor Caracalla was murdered at the instigation of Macrinus, A.D. 217. The place retained its importance down to the period of the Arab ascendancy, but is now wholly in ruins. According to the Book of Genesis, which traces the name to Haran, a son of Terah, Haran was the first resting-place of the latter and his family, after their migration from Ur of the Chaldees, and here Terah died before Abraham's migration into Canaan (Gen. xi. 31-32). The story recalls the tradition of the sojourn of some clans—probably of Aramean origin—associated with Hebrews at some remote period. Consult : Metz, Geschichte der Stadt Harran (1892); Sachau, Reise in Mesopotamien (Leipzig, 1899).