File:CostumsoftherichfemalesofOrfa.jpg

English: Post-card by Capucin Mission, of the Costumes of the rich females of the city of Urfa,or Edessa,now in southern Turkey north of the Syrian border,and prior to 1920's part of the Aleppo province.Edessa was a strong center of Aramaic culture and thought, the Prophet Abraham Settled there for a while [at close-by Harran ] .Center for the cult of Moon and Sun,[Sabians ] ,cult of Atargatis [ close-by Munbij,or Hierapolis in Syria ]. Early Christianity adopted by the Abgars, kings of Edessa,the correspondence between Jesus and King Abgar V, the origin of the shroud of Turin,Center of the Early Gnostic Academy surviving well into the Islamic era, and hot bed of early Eastern Christian movements: Assyrian Christians[Nestorians], and Monophysites Christians[ Jacobites,or Syriac ].The County of Edessa,was a Crusader state for a brief period. Most Arabic speaking Syriacs and Armenians of Urfa, fled to Syria and Lebanon in the 1920s.