Edessa (the modern Urfa in south-east Turkey) was celebrated throughout Christendom for the legend of the exchange of letters between its pagan king and Jesus at Jerusalem. It was venerated as the first kingdom to accept Christianity; it was the center of the Syrian Church, the intended destination of innumerable pilgrims from East and West, and the birthplace of classical Syriac literature. The story of its Christian community, administered in turn by Rome, Byzantium, Arabs, and Turks, reflects the vicissitudes of Mesopotamian history and culminates in the occupation of the city by Crusader counts and its devastation in 1146.

This study describes events at Edessa largely through contemporary accounts, and incorporates much new material, notably six mosaics found by the writer between 1952 and 1959.

J. B. Segal was a member of the Government of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan in 1939-41 and served in the British Army until 1946. He held the chair of Semitic Languages at London University until his retirement in 1979. In addition to his two books in the present series, he has written The Hebrew Passover (1963), A History of the Jews of Cochin (1993), and Aramaic and Mandaic Incantation Bowls in the British Museum (2000).

"This book will undoubtedly remain the standard work on a city that was for many centuries of great political importance and which played a vital part in the development of Eastern Christianity."--Steven Runciman, English Historical Review (1972)

"This volume should be of a great interest to ecclesiastical and social historians of the Middle Ages and to archaeologists and specialists in Early Christianity and in Islamic history."--British Book News (1970)