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Edessa

  (ĭ-dĕs'ə) pronunciation

An ancient city of Mesopotamia on the site of present-day Urfa in southeast Turkey. A major Christian center after the third century A.D., it was conquered by the Arabs in 639 and was captured by Crusaders in 1097.

 

 
 

Chief city (pop., 1991: 18,000), Macedonia, Greece. Located on a steep bluff above the valley of the Loudhiás River, it is a prominent trading and agricultural centre. The assumption that it was Aigai, the first capital of ancient Macedonia, has been challenged by archaeological discoveries at Verghina. Fought over by the Bulgarians, Byzantines, and Serbs, Edessa was taken by the Turks in the 15th century. In 1912 it passed to Greece.

For more information on Edessa, visit Britannica.com.

 
(ĭdĕs'ə) , ancient city of Mesopotamia, on the site of modern Şanlıurfa, Turkey. It emerged in the 4th cent. B.C. as Orrhoe, or Arrhoe, and was later named Edessa by Seleucus I of Syria. From c.137 B.C. it was the capital of the independent kingdom of Osroene. It later became a Roman city. There in A.D. 260, Shapur I of Persia defeated Emperor Valerian and took him prisoner. Edessa was a center of Christianity by the 3d cent. A.D. and became one of the major religious centers of the Byzantine Empire. The city fell to the Arabs in 639 and remained in Muslim hands until captured by the Crusaders in 1098. Baldwin (later Baldwin I of Jerusalem) became the ruler of Edessa, and when he became king, he turned it over to one of his cousins. The city, however, fell to the Muslims in 1144 and passed to the Ottoman Empire by 1637.


 
 

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Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/  Read more

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