Qualla: Lagash https://qualla.com/lagash en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:31 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/t/j/9/4/lagash-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Lagash https://qualla.com/lagash Lagash: Introduction https://qualla.com/lagash/ Photo credit Marie-Lan Nguyen, Public domain. In 2022, archaeologists digging at a site in southern Iraq uncovered a public eatery complete with ovens, a refrigeration system, benches, and stacks of bowls and beakers. The food preparation area had been buried for nearly five thousand years. This was Lagash, a Sumerian city-state that thrived at the junction of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers when much of the world's population still lived in scattered villages. At its peak around 2500 BC, Lagash covered roughly 500 hectares and governed a network of cities, temples, and canals. Its rulers left behind thousands of cuneiform inscriptions, the earliest known depiction of a phalanx in battle, and enough administrative records to reveal what daily life looked like at the very beginning of urban civilization.

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Image: Marie-Lan Nguyen | Public domain

]]> Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/t/j/9/4/lagash-wp/tj94-lagash-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Lagash: A State of Three Cities https://qualla.com/lagash/ Photo credit Marie-Lan Nguyen, Public domain. Lagash was not a single city but a small state. The political capital sat at modern Al-Hiba, about 22 kilometers east of the town of Al-Shatrah in Iraq's Dhi Qar Governorate. Twenty-five kilometers to the northwest stood Girsu, the religious heart of the state, where the great te...

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Image: Marie-Lan Nguyen | Public domain

]]> Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/t/j/9/4/lagash-wp/tj94-lagash-a-state-of-three-cities.mp3 0:06 2 full Lagash: Kings, Wars, and the Stele of the Vultures https://qualla.com/lagash/ Photo credit Ernest de Sarzec - Choquin de Sarzec, Ernest (1832-1901), Public domain. The first ruler of consequence was Ur-Nanshe, who built temples, conquered Umma and Ur, and received timber tribute from Dilmun across the Persian Gulf. His grandson Eannatum transformed Lagash into a regional power. Eannatum's inscriptions claim he destroyed Kish, Akshak, and Ma...

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Image: Ernest de Sarzec - Choquin de Sarzec, Ernest (1832-1901) | Public domain

]]> Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/t/j/9/4/lagash-wp/tj94-lagash-kings-wars-and-the-stele-of-the-vultures.mp3 0:06 3 full Lagash: Gudea and the Golden Aftermath https://qualla.com/lagash/ Photo credit Umma, CC BY-SA 3.0. Lagash fell under Akkadian control when Sargon of Akkad swept through Sumer around 2300 BC. His successor Rimush faced revolts and introduced mass slaughter to suppress them, keeping meticulous records of the destruction. After the Akkadian Empire collapsed, Lagash entered a seco...

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Image: Umma | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/t/j/9/4/lagash-wp/tj94-lagash-gudea-and-the-golden-aftermath.mp3 0:06 4 full Lagash: Digging Through the Water Table https://qualla.com/lagash/ Photo credit Chan Ariel Hin Man, CC BY-SA 4.0. Western archaeologists first reached Lagash in 1887, when Robert Koldewey excavated for six weeks. Thorkild Jacobsen and Fuad Safar confirmed the site's identity during a 1953 survey. Between 1968 and 1976, a team from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and New York University conduc...

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Image: Chan Ariel Hin Man | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/t/j/9/4/lagash-wp/tj94-lagash-digging-through-the-water-table.mp3 0:06 5 full Lagash: What Remains in the Dust https://qualla.com/lagash/ Photo credit Paul Hudson from United Kingdom, CC BY 2.0. After the fall of the Third Dynasty of Ur around 2000 BC, Lagash faded. Some modest occupation continued during the Isin-Larsa and Old Babylonian periods, and a Seleucid fortress was built there in the second century BC. Then the site was abandoned to wind and alluvial dust. Toda...

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Image: Paul Hudson from United Kingdom | CC BY 2.0

]]> Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/t/j/9/4/lagash-wp/tj94-lagash-what-remains-in-the-dust.mp3 0:06 6 full