Ur

30.9627°N, 46.1031°E.

Sumerian city in southern Mesopotamia, modern Tell el-Muqayyar, Iraq. Continuously occupied from approximately 3800 BCE through the 4th century BCE. The Ziggurat of Ur, completed under the Third Dynasty (~2100 BCE) by king Ur-Nammu and dedicated to the moon god Nanna, originally rose 30 metres in three stepped tiers; the lower stage and partial second stage are extant. The city was the seat of the Sumerian Renaissance under Ur III and a major political and religious center for millennia. Sir Leonard Woolley's 1922–1934 excavations uncovered the Royal Cemetery, including the Tomb of Queen Puabi and the Standard of Ur, plus an extensive flood layer 3 metres thick that briefly seemed to confirm the biblical Deluge — until later work showed similar layers across multiple Mesopotamian sites at different dates. Abraham of the biblical narrative is identified with “Ur of the Chaldees” here.

A 4,100-year-old moon temple is still standing in southern Iraq — and the man Abraham, if he existed, walked away from it to start a religion.