Iraq is reopening the ancient city of Ur to the public next month when the United States military hands it back. It’s been closed since the US invasion in 2003.
The archaeological site is the birthplace of Abraham and dates to 6000 BC, where it once resided on a bank along a former course of the Euphrates River. It’s one of Iraq’s oldest and best preserved archaeological sites, famous for its ziggurat, or stepped platform (pictured).
Ur is also famous as the site of a great conquest by Alexander the Great a few hundred years before the birth of Christ.
The site likes next to the US air base of Talila, just outside of Nasiriyah in Southern Iraq.