"From Ur, Abraham's father had migrated to Haran, in the
northern part of Mesopotamia, on the high road which led from
Babylonia and Assyria into Syria and Palestine. Why he should
have migrated to so distant a city has been a great puzzle,
and has tempted scholars to place both Ur and Haran in wrong
localities; but here, again, the cuneiform inscriptions have
at last furnished us with the key. As far back as the Accadian
epoch, the district in which Haran was built belonged to the
rulers of Babylonia; Haran was, in fact, the frontier town of
the empire, commanding at once the highway into the west and
the fords of the Euphrates; the name itself was an Accadian
one, signifying 'the road.'"
_A. H. Sayce,
Fresh Light from the Ancient Monuments,
chapter 2._
The site of Haran is generally identified with that of the
later city of Carrhæ.