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Tello/Girsu: New Research on the Sacred City of the State of Lagash

    Sébastien Rey, Fatma Husain

Ancient Lagash, pp. 183-194, 2022/12/27

Proceedings of the Workshop held at the 10th ICAANE in Vienna, April 2016

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Abstract

Girsu (modern Tello) was considered to be the sanctuary of the patron-god Ningirsu and the sacred metropolis of the Lagash state. Due to the site having been extensively excavated between 1877 and 1933 by four French expeditions and heavily plundered especially between 1909 and 1929, its topographical layout has considerably changed over the past 138 years, i.e., since the first exploration by Ernest de Sarzec in 1877. Today massive amounts of excavation spoil completely conceal, at least for the central mounds of the site, any significant landscape features of the archaic city. A new interdisciplinary research project re-examined the archaeological evidence by means of remote sensing, enhanced by ground reconnaissance, new site explorations, and the reassessment of the textual sources, leading to a reconstruction of the city’s ancient landscape. This paper’s primary aim is to present the first results of this research.

Keywords: Girsu, Lagash, Gudea, Early Dynastic, Sumerians