This morning we flew from Istanbul to Gaziantep in eastern Turkey, picked up our rental car and headed east to Zugma. This is a Roman period town that has been mostly flooded as a result of a dam built on the Euphrates River.
We continued east to Sanliurfa, and then south to Harran (some English Bible versions use Haran). Harran is located in biblical Padan-Aram (Genesis 25:29, et al.). Abraham and his family lived in the area (Genesis 11:21). The city has a long history which I will not go into now.
For the past two hundred years the people who live here have built mud brick conical, beehive-shaped houses. I have also seen some of these houses in northern Syria.
At the present time very few people still live in the beehive-shaped houses. For touristic and educational purposes some of the houses have been reconstructed to show how people used them for dwellings.
If you have seen the houses at Haran over the past few decades, you may think that these in my photo look entirely too good.
Having been here twice before, I must admit that I was a bit letdown when I saw the condition of the town today. On the north side of town a large number of new houses have been built. Some apartment buildings now stand on the west side. One young man told us that very few of the residents keep sheep. Most, he said, are involved in raising cotton on the plains about Harran.
Beehive-shaped houses at Harran. Photo by Ferrell Jenkins.
Ferrell's Travel Blog 
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