An incredible site that is sadly spoiled by the avarice of the local guides. This is a very ancient site, important throughout history until it was mostly destroyed by the Mongols. Abraham and his family are said to have lived here. It was the site of a major temple of the moon god Sin in Assyrian and Babylonian times. A star worshipping sect called the Sabeans were present here before and after the Islamic conquest. It was the site of the first university in the Islamic world and a key factor in the Islamic Golden Age. After the site was destroyed, another unrelated tribe moved here and built some beehive houses, but the beehive houses are not ancient, nor particularly connected to the rest of the history of the site. The site contains the ruins of a mosque and the old university. There is also a castle. All of the ruins can be viewed from a distance, but are all currently fenced off for renovation. There are some beehive houses that can be entered, but there is a fee for this. The local guides will be quite pushy about wanting to guide you around the site and they don’t really know the history that well. However, they will demand large sums of money for five minutes walking and inaccurate factoids, so be warned about this. Don’t get a tour guide unless you absolutely are sure they know what they are talking about.