is a unique town of mud-brick, beehive shaped houses 44 kilometres south of Sanliurfa in southeast Turkey. Situated in the region watered by the series of new dams constructed under the major Gόneydogu Anadolu Projesi (Southeast Anatolia Project) or GAP, Harran is now fertile and abundant in grains as well as archeological sites. In ancient times, Harran was an extremely important city famous for its philosophers and thinkers, and is also near to the site where the ancient tablets carrying the Epic of Gilgamesh were found. There are hundreds of ancient settlement mounds in Harran area where finds have revealed that this site was inhabited vastly as a center of trade and education without interruption from 5000 BC until the 13th century AD when the Mongol conquests happened in the area. Due to the town's position on roads linking Mesopotamia to the Mediterranean coast it was known in Sumerian and Akkadian as Harran-u, meaning journey or caravan. At the time of the kingdom of Babylon it was known as Uru-ki-kaskal-al Harran.

Harran, in a long list of religiously important cities in Turkey, is yet another one as having been mentioned in the Bible as the place where Rebecca found water for Jacob, and where the prophet Abraham, having been born just to the north, decided to move to Canaan.

http://en.wikipedia