Ur Kaśdim (אוּר כַּשְׂדִּים ʾur kasdim), commonly translated as Ur of the Chaldees, is a city mentioned in the Hebrew Bible as the birthplace of the Israelite and Ismaelite patriarch Abraham. In 1862, Henry Rawlinson identified Ur Kaśdim with Tell el-Muqayyar, near Nasiriyah in southern Iraq.[1] In 1927, Leonard Woolley excavated the site and identified it as a Sumerian archaeological site where the Chaldeans were to settle around the 9th century BCE.[2] Recent archaeology work has continued to focus on the location in Nasiriyah, where the ancient Ziggurat of Ur is located.[3][4][5][6][7][8]