Genesis 10 - Noah’s Family Tree - Kalneh or Calna, or is it Calno?
Noah > Ham > Cush > Nimrod >> Kalneh
Kalneh is one of the cities that scripture records Nimrod ruling. It’s location is uncertain, but is certainly within Shinar, probably not too far from Babylon. There have been several attempts to locate it, but none with certainty. There are no Kings that I found, no modern cities that are clearly descended from them, no real events passed down through the ages. However, there is information through which one might put together some story.
Kalneh and its possible variants appear in the following four verses:
- Genesis 10:10 - The first centers of his kingdom were Babylon, Uruk, Akkad and Kalneh, in Shinar.Â
- Amos 6:2 - Go to Kalneh and look at it; go from there to great Hamath, and then go down to Gath in Philistia. Are they better off than your two kingdoms? Is their land larger than yours?
- Isaiah 10:9 -  ‘Has not Kalno fared like Carchemish? Is not Hamath like Arpad, and Samaria like Damascus?
- Ezekial 27:23 - “‘Harran, Kanneh and Eden and merchants of Sheba, Ashur and Kilmad traded with you.
According to Wikipedia…
Easton’s 1897 Bible Dictionary silently follows Sir Henry Rawlinson in interpreting the Talmudic passage Joma 10a identifying Calneh with the modern Nippur, a lofty mound of earth and rubbish situated in the marshes on the east bank of the Euphrates, but 30 miles distant from its present course, and about 60 miles south-south-east from Babylon.
Though uncertain, the location would place it in the right area…
Furthermore, according to JewishEncylopia…
Moving on to other possibilities, according to Wikipedia, “Calneh is also mentioned in Amos 6:2, and some have also associated this place with Calno — in Isaiah 10:9, located in Northern Syria between Carchemish on the Euphrates River and Arpad near Aleppo. This is identified by some archaeological scholars as Kulnia, Kullani or Kullanhu, modern Kullan-Köy about ten kilometers southeast from Arpad.” But, Syria is to far North and East of Babylon…
Placing Kalneh in Syria however, so far from Babylon, conflicts with the idea of Nimrod moving from Shinar to Assyria after the confusion of languages. The association with Ezekial 27:23 is equally uncertain.
In conclusion, Nippur appears to be the best guess, assuming any of them are correct at all. Even Nippur may not be right either, but it’s the most reasonable choice of those I have found.