Euphrates

The Euphrates (/juːˈfreɪtiːz/; Arabic: الفرات‎: al-Furāt, Hebrew: פרת‎: Prat, Turkish: Fırat, Kurdish: Firat) is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of Western Asia. Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia. Originating in eastern Turkey, the Euphrates flows through Syria and Iraq to join the Tigris in the Shatt al-Arab, which empties into the Persian Gulf. The earliest references to the Euphrates come from cuneiform texts found in Shuruppak and pre-Sargonic Nippur in southern Iraq and date to the mid-third millennium BCE. In these texts, written in Sumerian, the Euphrates appears as Buranuna (logographic: UD.KIB.NUN). The name could also be written KIB.NUN.(NA) or KIB.NUN,...