HABOR

HABOR (Heb. חָבוֹר), a river flowing through Mesopotamia for 218 mi. (350 km.) from north to south in the region of el-Jazira, the area between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. It rises from Mt. Kharagah, and is joined by five tributary streams, emptying into the Euphrates north of Mari. The surrounding region was productive in antiquity; grain was raised mainly in the north while in the southern Habor Valley sheep and cattle, and later also horses, were raised. Beyond the northern Habor lay an important trade route, which started at Nineveh, the Assyrian metropolis, and ran by way of Nisibis, Gozan, and Haran to Carchemish on the Euphrates. This route was apparently used in the days of Abraham and even before. On the evidence of the remains excavated at Chagar Bazar, the Habor Valley was first settled in the Neolithic period. In the 18th century B.C.E., many attempts were made to channel the river's waters by means of dams and canals, as is known from the Mari letters of that period. In the 16th-14th centuries B.C.E. the region of the Habor was in the center of the mighty kingdom of Mitanni, and the area was reduced to ruins until it was revived in the 10th century B.C.E. The city of Gozan (Tell Halaf) became especially important, and according to the Bible the river was apparently named after it. The Assyrian conquest of the Habor district began in the ninth and eighth centuries. When insurrections in the conquered cities increased, one city after another was destroyed and the inhabitants deported. In their place Tiglath-Pileser III settled the Israelite exiles from Transjordan (I Chron. 5:26), and later Sargon II settled the exiles from Samaria there (II Kings 17:6; 18:11; cf. Pritchard, Texts, 284–5). Documents found in the excavations of Gozan prove the presence of Israelite exiles in this city (see gozan and assyrian exile ). -BIBLIOGRAPHY: F. Sarre and E.E. Hertzfeld, Archaeologische Reise im Euphrat-und Tigris-Gebiet, 1 (1911); J. Seidmann, Die Inschriften Adadniraris II (1935); C.J. Gadd, in: Iraq, 7 (1940), 22ff.; J. Kupper, in: Archives Royales de Mari, 3 (1950), 2, 5, 80; J. Lewy, in: Orientalia, 21 (1952), 265–92, 393–425. (Michael Avi-Yonah)