The site of Ur is being renovated

CONSERVATION: Iraq preparing $14.5 million renovation of ancient city of Ur. The head of the General Authority for Antiquities and Heritage said the work was to ensure its preservation for the future. (The New Arab).

Iraq's ancient city of Ur, birthplace of the Biblical patriarch Abraham, is located in the country's south near the modern city of Nasiriyah in Iraq's Dhi Qar province.

It hosts numerous archaeological sites, the most famous of which is the Ziggurat of Ur, a stepped pyramid dating back 4,000 years that has the status of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The restoration of the site of Ur is good news.

The biblical references to Ur ("Ur of the Chaldeans") are in Genesis 11:28, 31; 15:7; and Nehemiah 9:7. They all involve Abraham's origin in that city. The reference to the Chaldeans is anachronistic in this context, but it perhaps gives insight into when the Abraham traditions were assembled.

The Chaldeans as an ethnic group only show up around the beginning of the first millennium BCE. Ur was under their rule only commencing with the Chaldean Neo-Babylonian dynasty in the seventh century BCE.

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