Commonly thought is that Ur of the Chaldees from where hailed Abraham was the city of Ur in Sumer, but his city of birth was actually Urkesh (Tell Mozan) on the upper Chebar (Khaber) river (flows south into the Euphrates), named for Heber, in the land named for Heber’s grandfather Arphaxad, Ariphurra, the land of the Hurrians. The Nuzi tablets (near Kirkuk) of the Hurrians says that Ariphurra (Arphaxad) was the founder of Chaldea, the Kaldi who were astrologers from whom Abraham with his family fled.
