Divine Cults in the Sacred Precinct of Girsu

The Sumerian site of Girsu with its sacred precinct, known as the Urukug, is among the first cities of the ancient world. In the third millennium BCE it was considered the sanctuary of one of the great gods of the Sumerian pantheon, the mighty Ningirsu, who ruled the powerful city-state of Lagash from his temple Eninnu, also known as The White Thunderbird. It is well known that the birth of archaic states in Mesopotamia happened primarily through the mediation of religion. In Girsu, it was specifically the Urukug sanctum and its age-old temples at the heart of the preurban consecrated area that constituted the focal point around which the city and its territory crystallized. Renewed excavations at the temple site after decades of fieldwork interruption have provided a wealth of new insights into the sacred landscape of Girsu and the rituals related to the great cults of its chief deities.