A couple years ago I got into the ecclestiastic history of the Assyrians. These were mostly a Tigris (Arabic/Aramaic "Dijla") people, skating the edge of the Zagros; with a few touches on the Khuzestan southeast of that where they weren't clinging to Elamoid pidgin. For the Euphrates, west of the Jazira plains, I was a little more confused. Which is a problem for those wanting into the early Arab amirate. I need looking to the desert border...
Let's talk: Perât de Mayshân. Spellings vary - in Latin script. The Syriac speakers were a bit more clear. The nineteenth-century and Mingana studies led me to assume that this region was Basra. Lately I am digesting J. Hansman, "The Land of Meshan" ed. Iran 22 (1984), 161-6; doi:10.2307/4299744. Of course actual Iranians would prefer to call this region "Eraq" within the Aneran but we'll leave that aside.
Hansman links this Christian Perât with a Pratta known to Pliny before, and with al-Furât known to the Arabs. It is almost Basra. Perât is named after the Euphrates, but also was not the Euphrates itself. I keep having to revisit "Perât de Mayshân" so as not to consider it some "Mayshân" of the Euphrates so - let us not do that.
Pratta was probably just "Euphrates City". But maybe some other city claimed that name, so our focus is the Pratta of the Mayshan. Although it was not Basra, it was ten parasangs from where the Basrians planted their misr, so 48.3 km, which journey isn't too bad on a skiff. Since then the Gulf has retreated further, so even Basra isn't Basra anymore. Apparently the Iraqis are calling the site "Naysân" now.
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