Tello (Tel Telloh) is the Arabic name for the ancient Sumerian city of Girsu, one of the world's earliest known cities. Its heyday began around 4,500 years ago, when it became the capital of the kingdom of Lagash. Later, when political power shifted, this metropolis remained the religious center of the empire.
Little wonder, then, that the site featured a temple dedicated to the great Sumerian god, Ningirsu (from whom the city took its name), the spring thunder. The sanctuary, according to the archaeologists of the British Museum, was revered as one of the most important in all of Mesopotamia.
The space, found in southern Iraq, was part of the sacred enclosure called Urukug. Researchers had some references to its existence thanks to inscriptions unearthed 140 years ago, during the first excavations at the site.
"The search for the Eninnu temple has haunted generations of archaeologists and its recent recovery is an important milestone after decades in which field work in Iraq was interrupted," the British specialists explain in a statement.
The works included in the firedamp project, which began in 2015 in response to the destruction of heritage sites in Iraq and Syria at the hands of the Islamic State, have also made it possible to discover the remains of a lost palace of the kings of this ancient Sumerian city.
Between 3,500 and 2,000 BC, the Sumerians invented writing, built the first cities, and created the first law codes, which they embodied using cuneiform writing on clay tablets. The discovery of Girsu 140 years ago revealed to the world the existence of this civilization and brought to light some of the most important monuments of Mesopotamian art and architecture.
In 2022, remote sensing work using state-of-the-art technology was complemented by drone photos to locate the subterranean remains of a previously unknown vast complex at the site called Tablet Hill, which had been devastated by amateur excavations in the 19th century and by war conflicts of the 20th century.
In the palace, more than 200 cuneiform tablets that were part of the administrative records of this great ancient city were also identified. “These archaeological excavations in Iraq will reveal even more significant ancient times in Mesopotamia,” says Dr. Ahmed Fakak Al-Badrani, Iraqi Minister of Culture. "Girsu is one of the most important heritage sites in the world, but little is still known about it," acknowledges Sebastien Rey, director of the Girsu Project.
