UPTON, GEORGE PUTNAM ( 1835— ). An American musical critic, born in Boston, and educated at Brown University. From 1861 to 1885 he was on the editorial staff of the Chicago Tribune. In 1872 he founded and became first president of the Apollo Club. His works include: Letters of Peregrine Pickle (1870) ; Woman in Music (1885) ; Standard Operas (1890; 15th ed. 1902) ; Sta-ndurd Oratorios (1891) ; Stand ard Symphonies UR, er (Heb. 'fir, Bab. Urn). An ancient. metropolis of Southern Babylonia, which has been identified with the modern Mukayyir, gen erally written Mugheir. This site lies close to the Euphrates, at the point where the canal Shat-el-Hai connects this river with the Tigris, while the Wady Rummein gives it access to Arabia. Hence, it was in a position most eligi ble for commerce and political greatness, which it enjoyed from the earliest period of Babylonian history. It was the chief seat in Babylonia of the worship of the moon-god Sin, whose massive temple still stands 70 feet above the plain. There are traces of an early dynasty about B.C. 4000, according to one school of chronology, while about B.C. 3000 the kings Ur-Gur and Dungi I.
made Ur the capital of "Sumer and Akkad," i.e. Babylonia. Another dynasty, about B.C. 2400, ap pears, claiming imperial dominion, and from its time there remains an interesting body of con tracts, revealing the commercial development of the city. It finally succumbed to Babylon's great ness, but continued a sacred and important place throughout Babylonian history. The biblical passages call it Ur of the Chaldees, and make it the starting point of the migration of Abraham's family westward (Gen. xi. 27-32). As this tra dition is preserved in the Priestly Narrative alone, the identification has been doubted by va rious scholars, who would prefer to find the bib lical Ur in the region of the Upper Euphrates. The first examinations of Mukayyir were made by Loftus, and its excavation by J. E. Taylor in 1854. Consult: Rogers, History of Babylonia and Assyria (New York, 1901) ; Hilprecht. Explora tions in Bible Lands (Philadelphia, 1903). See ABRAHAM.