A doctoral dissertation from the University of Strassburg in 1892 presents the eventful history of the city of Harran or Carrhae, now in southeastern Turkey, beginning with a survey of the local geography. In the Old Testament, it is the sole fixed point of the history of Israel before Palestine; Abraham and Laban dwelt there, and the nobles of the ten tribes of the Kingdom of Israel were exiled nearby; Mez reports rabbinic discussions of Harran at length. Cuneiform records survive from Assyrian Harran; Alexander took it; it was debated among his Successors, and between the Seleucids, the Parthians, the Armenians, and the Romans: Crassus led his troops to utter disaster at Carrhae. It was a metropolis of Roman Mesopotamia in the third century, and one of the stops in Julian's ill-fated expedition, after which the Sassanians took it; it had a Christian bishop from 361, and the Church of the East found it a refuge from Justinian. The book ends with Iyadh ibn Ganm's letter to the Bishop of Harran, offering tolerance for surrender.