After visiting the bazaar and stopping for a tea at an inn (han) in Urfa we drive to Harran some 50 km outside Urfa at the Syrian border. Harran is now a village protected by Unesco as it still contains architectural ruins of ancient civilizations that go back more than 2000 BC. The place is mentioned in the Old Testament as the city where Terah, the father of Abraham, settled after leaving the Ur of Chaldea. It was also the last residence of Abraham. In Assyrian and Babylonian times Harran was made famous by a temple dedicated to Sin, the God of the Moon. In this picture you can see a citadel attributed to Saladin that was raised on the ruins of the Temple of Harran. In the Islamic age Harran was the site of the First Islamic University, and an important center of Islamism during the Umayyad period. In the 13th century the Mongols destroyed the city and its monuments.Yet some parts of the city walls still stand.