Dear Mar Shiprim Readers,
Over the next two months, we will take a virtual trip to Iraq, first to visit the Girsu Project in Tello, and next month to learn more about the upcoming RAI 71 in Baghdad. We thank Dr. Sébastien Rey for this month’s insights into excavation, conservation and cultural heritage work that continues to take place at the ancient site of Girsu.
With warm wishes,
Pavla Rosenstein
Mar Shiprim Editor
In the Spotlight – the Girsu Project with Sébastien Rey
Thank you for taking the time in speaking to us. Can you please introduce yourself?
My name is Sébastien Rey, and I am an archaeologist and museum curator specialising in the archaeology, history, and material culture of early Mesopotamia. I received my doctorate from Sorbonne University and am currently Curator of Ancient Mesopotamia at the British Museum. My work brings together field archaeology, collections research, and public engagement, bridging excavation, scholarship, and the museum context.
Sébastien Rey speaking at the British Academy in 2025, sharing insights from the Girsu Project with an international scholarly audience (photo by Ali Khadr).
Alongside my curatorial role, I direct the Girsu Project, a long-term collaboration between the British Museum and the Iraq State Board of Antiquities and Heritage focused on the ancient Sumerian city of Girsu (modern Tello) in southern Iraq. The project combines systematic excavation with the re-examination of historic discoveries, heritage conservation, and the training of Iraqi archaeologists. Through both new fieldwork and the study of legacy collections, it has played a key role in reshaping scholarly understandings of early Mesopotamia.
My research explores the development of cities, the role of temples and cult in Mesopotamian society, and the long afterlives of ancient sites and objects in modern museums. I have authored and edited several publications on these themes, including For the Gods of Girsu: City-State Formation in Ancient Sumer, The Temple of Ningirsu: The Culture of the Sacred in Mesopotamia, and Sumeromania: The History of the British Museum’s Girsu Collection. These works situate archaeological evidence within broader historical, religious, and institutional frameworks.
In parallel, I develop interdisciplinary and experimental projects that explore early Mesopotamia through alternative scholarly and artistic formats, including Cosmic Mountain and Thunderbird. As a curator, I have also shaped research-led museum displays and major international exhibitions, translating current archaeological scholarship for wide public audiences. These range from focused displays on Mesopotamian ideas of borders and contested spaces (No Man’s Land) to large-scale touring exhibitions on Assyrian kingship (I am Ashurbanipal: King of Assyria, King of the World). Across excavation, scholarship, and curatorship, my work seeks to connect ancient Mesopotamia with the modern institutional, cultural, and creative contexts through which it continues to be interpreted.
Can you please tell us more about the ancient site of Girsu – modern Tello?
Girsu (modern Tello, in southern Iraq) was one of the principal cities of ancient Sumer and served as the religious capital of the state of Lagash. Continuously occupied from around 5000 to 1750 BCE, it flourished during the third millennium BCE as a major sacred, administrative, and intellectual centre. The site has yielded some of the earliest evidence for Sumerian cuneiform writing, monumental architecture, and complex urban organisation, making it fundamental to our understanding of the emergence of early Mesopotamian civilisation.
The archaeological site of Tello (ancient Girsu), where students from universities across Iraq gathered for hands-on training during the autumn 2024 programme (photo by Alberto Giannese).
Located around 300 kilometres south of Baghdad, Girsu lay within a fertile alluvial landscape shaped by canals branching from the Euphrates–Tigris river system. In antiquity, this environment supported intensive irrigation agriculture and sustained a dense urban population. As the cult centre of the god Ningirsu, Girsu held a unique spiritual status within Lagash, attracting rulers who invested heavily in temples, monuments, and ritual infrastructure.
The city’s archives and inscriptions, produced under rulers such as Ur-Nanshe, Eanatum, Enmetena, Urukagina, and Gudea, form one of the richest historical records from early Mesopotamia. Together, they offer exceptional insight into early kingship, religion, administration, and urban life.
Girsu was first excavated between 1877 and 1933 by French teams working for the Louvre, revealing temples, archives, and iconic sculptures, including the statues of Gudea. After decades of neglect and extensive looting, the site has been the focus of renewed archaeological work since 2016 through the Girsu Project. Today, Girsu stands as a foundational site for understanding early Mesopotamian urbanism, religion, and state formation, as well as the modern histories of archaeology and museum collections shaped by its discoveries.
What are the main goals and aspirations of the current Girsu Project?
The Girsu Project was established to address the long-term consequences of early, unsystematic excavations and decades of looting at one of southern Mesopotamia’s most important urban centres. It approaches Girsu not as an isolated excavation area, but as a wider archaeological and cultural landscape. Its overarching aim is to recover knowledge from a heavily disturbed site while laying the foundations for its long-term preservation and sustainable future.
Archaeologically, the project combines archival research, remote sensing, survey, targeted excavation, and environmental studies within an integrated, data-driven framework. A central objective has been to prioritise non-invasive methods and rescue archaeology, systematically re-examining areas affected by earlier excavations in order to recover stratigraphic, architectural, and textual information that was previously lost or poorly recorded. This work is embedded within a broader interdisciplinary approach that brings together archaeologists, conservators, epigraphers, architects, and environmental scientists, integrating excavation results and conservation data through GIS and interoperable digital databases.
Inside the Old Babylonian Priestly Library, a drone is deployed to document the architecture, producing high-resolution photogrammetric models of the building (photo by Amélie Deblauwe).
The current phase of the project is organised around a holistic, site-based heritage strategy structured across four interdependent components: the excavation, conservation, and publication of the Sumerian Library; rescue archaeology at Tablet Hill; the investigation and preservation of Girsu’s bridge and hydraulic system; and the long-term conservation and in situ presentation of the Temple of Ningirsu. All these activities are centred on the site itself and integrated within a single conservation and heritage management framework, ensuring that research, preservation, and training proceed together rather than as separate or sequential tasks. At the heart of this programme is the discovery in 2024 of a Sumerian Library at Girsu, one of the most significant archaeological finds in Iraq in recent decades, which is being excavated alongside continuous preventative conservation and advanced training in the handling and preservation of cuneiform archives. Beyond research, conservation, training, and heritage management are core aspirations of the project. Rescue archaeology at Tablet Hill has shown how heavily damaged areas can still yield substantial historical insight while also serving as training grounds for best practice in re-excavating disturbed sites. At the same time, major monuments such as Girsu’s bridge and the Temple of Ningirsu are being stabilised and conserved through innovative, fully reversible methods designed for southern Iraq’s challenging environmental conditions. Together, these strands position the Girsu Project as a sustainable model for working in vulnerable, historically overworked landscapes – one in which archaeological research, conservation, and capacity building are pursued as a single, interconnected endeavour with long-term benefits for heritage management in Iraq.
The project is a collaboration with several stakeholders, including the British Museum and the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage in Iraq. Can you tell us more about how the project is structured?
Fatima Yassir Husain, Deputy Director of the Girsu Project, whose dedication has been central to building trust and collaboration among the project’s many partners and stakeholders (photo by Dani Tagen).
The Girsu Project is structured as an international partnership between the British Museum and the Iraq State Board of Antiquities and Heritage, operating under the authority of the Iraqi Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Antiquities. The project works in coordination with other Iraqi ministries as well as with regional and local authorities in Dhi Qar Governorate. This ensures that all archaeological activity is fully embedded within Iraq’s legal, administrative, and security frameworks. Pictured is Fatima Yassir Husain, the Deputy Director of the project, whose work is crucial to successful collaboration with the Iraq State Board of Antiquities and Heritage, local authorities, and international partners. With professional experience at the Iraq Museum and long-standing engagement with the site of Girsu, she plays a central role in site stewardship, community relations, and educational outreach, and is a key representative of the project within Iraq. The project is currently funded by the UK-based charitable foundation Meditor Trust and is delivered as an integrated, site-based heritage programme combining excavation, conservation, training, documentation, and publication.
Beyond its core institutional partnership, the project is deliberately structured as a broad stakeholder network centred on the site of Girsu itself. Local communities in Tello are a central part of this structure, with residents employed as part of the project workforce and working alongside Iraqi and international specialists. Iraqi heritage organisations, professional associations, and NGOs are also key partners. Media, journalists, and public audiences, both within Iraq and internationally, also form an important part of this ecosystem, reflecting the project’s commitment to transparency, public engagement, and shared stewardship of cultural heritage.
Academic collaboration is another major pillar of the project. The Girsu Project brings together Iraqi universities, laboratories, and students with international academic institutions and foreign archaeological missions working in Iraq. These partnerships support specialist research, comparative studies, and training across disciplines, while situating Girsu within a wider scholarly landscape that includes neighbouring sites such as Lagash, Uruk, and Ur. For example, we collaborate with Al-Qadissiyah University on research into the site’s ancient canals and waterscape. We also deliver Master classes in rescue archaeology and site conservation at Sumer University, and we are in discussion with Dhi Qar University regarding the development of a Master’s programme in Heritage Management.
A stakeholders’ meeting at Girsu in 2024, bringing together the Director General of SBAH, Ali Obeid Shalgham; the Director of the Nasiriya Office, Shamil Ibrahim Dayikh; SBAH officials; Iraqi student trainees; and media representatives (photo by Alberto Giannese).
Crucially, this structure recognises archaeology itself as an active agent within the Tello–Girsu landscape. The project’s sustained presence generates employment, training, and skills development, offering a more stable and resilient form of local benefit than tourism alone, which can be vulnerable to political or global crises. At the same time, long-term collaboration fosters professional relationships and cultural exchange, strengthening connections between local communities and their heritage. In this sense, the Girsu Project is not only an archaeological endeavour, but a collaborative platform through which research, conservation, and sustainable development are pursued together.
One of the Girsu Project goals is to develop “an inclusive model of best practice” combining research, training, site conversation and heritage management – can you tell us more about what it entails?
The Girsu bridge and hydraulic structure, during an on-site conservation training session led by the project’s Heritage Manager, Ebru Torun (photo by Alberto Giannese).
One of the central ambitions of the Girsu Project is to develop this inclusive model of best practice that brings together research, training, conservation, and heritage management within a single framework. In the current context, this level of integration remains relatively rare. Many archaeological projects, whether foreign or Iraqi-led, still approach sites primarily as scientific resources. At Girsu, by contrast, we treat the site as a heritage asset with cultural, social, and economic value, requiring long-term care, shared responsibility, and meaningful engagement beyond excavation alone.
A key element of this model is the deliberate refusal to separate research and conservation into sequential or competing activities. At Girsu, conservation is not an afterthought or an optional add-on; it directly shapes excavation strategy from the outset. Decisions about what to excavate, how to record it, and how to stabilise and present archaeological remains are made collectively and continuously. In practice, this has shown that rigorous scientific investigation, high conservation standards, and preparation for future visitors are not only compatible, but mutually reinforcing. When these activities are properly coordinated, both research quality and heritage outcomes improve.
This way of working reflects broader shifts in conservation theory over the past century, away from a narrow focus on isolated monuments and towards more inclusive, landscape-scale approaches to heritage management. Girsu clearly demands such a perspective. The site’s long-term survival depends on understanding, and working with, the wider landscape in which it sits. For this reason, archaeology and conservation at Girsu are framed as contributions to a shared vision for the site’s future, rather than as ends in themselves.
As part of the field survey training programme, trainee Karrar Amer Atiyah works alongside Girsu Project archaeologist Tony Baxter, autumn 2021 (photo by Dani Tagen).
At the same time, the project is realistic about the limits of what archaeology alone can achieve. Rural regions face economic, environmental, and infrastructural challenges that no excavation project can resolve by itself. Nevertheless, by being attentive to local contexts, investing in training and capacity building, and working closely with Iraqi partners we aim to ensure that archaeological practice contributes positively to local resilience and sustainability. The strong interest this approach has generated within Iraqi institutions and the international archaeological community suggests that it may help shape more responsible and sustainable models of heritage management in Iraq in the years to come. For example, the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage has supported the use of Girsu as a training hub for students and professionals from multiple provinces, and elements of the project’s conservation-led methodology have been discussed with Iraqi partners as potential models at other sites in southern Iraq.
How have excavation and rescue been balanced at Girsu and what are your thoughts about sustainable archaeological practices in the future?
Because the site had already been profoundly affected by early, poorly documented excavations and looting, any new intervention had to respond to immediate risks while still producing meaningful research outcomes. From the outset, we adopted the principle that excavation should only take place where it contributes to knowledge, conservation, and long-term site protection. This reflects a broader understanding of sustainable archaeological practice. Rather than maximising excavation, sustainability lies in careful selection, minimal intervention, and close integration with conservation, documentation, and training. At Girsu, rescue is therefore not simply an emergency response, but a methodological framework for working responsibly in fragile, historically overworked landscapes. Looking ahead, I believe sustainable archaeology will depend less on the scale of excavation and more on how projects balance research ambitions with stewardship, local capacity building, and the long-term resilience of archaeological sites.
Let me take three examples from Girsu to illustrate how this works in practice.
The first is Tablet Hill (Tell V), the administrative heart of the ancient city and one of the most heavily damaged areas of the site. Intensively excavated and looted in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the mound lost tens of thousands of cuneiform tablets with little or no contextual recording. When work resumed in 2022, our aim was not to “recover what was lost”, but to stabilise endangered remains, document surviving stratigraphy, and extract historical information from contexts long considered archaeologically exhausted. By carefully removing historic spoil heaps and re-examining the edges of earlier trenches, we were able to reconstruct a remarkably continuous sequence of architecture and archives, while also recontextualising dispersed tablets now held in museums worldwide. Tablet Hill has also become a key training environment, demonstrating how severely disturbed sites can still support research and hands-on training that strengthens local expertise in excavation, conservation and heritage management, ensuring that knowledge and skills gained through the project remain within Iraqi institutions.
A second example is Tell A, the so-called Mound of the Palace. Here, early excavations between 1877 and 1933 radically reshaped the site, shaving off large areas of the summit and leaving deep craters surrounded by unstable spoil heaps. Our response combined a systematic reinterpretation of flawed legacy data with highly targeted fieldwork guided by precise mapping, remote sensing, and minimal intervention. Small, strategic soundings, such as those locating the sacred well of Gudea’s Eninnu, showed that significant remains survived just below the levels reached by earlier excavators. This rescue-led approach has fundamentally revised our understanding of the sacred precinct, revealing multiple previously unrecognised phases of temple construction, ritual closure, and rebuilding from the Early Dynastic through Hellenistic periods.
The third example comes from Tell K, the Mound of the House of the Fruits, which presented one of the most urgent rescue scenarios on the site. Earlier excavations, particularly the poorly documented “Great Pit” of 1930–31, left the mound unstable and actively eroding. When we worked there in 2023, conventional excavation was simply not safe. Instead, we focused on recording exposed sections through high-resolution photogrammetry and carefully selected sampling. Even under severe constraints, this approach allowed us to build a coherent stratigraphic sequence and preserve environmental and chronological data that would otherwise have been lost. Tell K demonstrates that rescue archaeology can be both scientifically rigorous and ethically responsible, even in the most challenging conditions.
Taken together, these examples show that sustainable archaeology is not about doing less, but about doing things differently. It requires acknowledging limits, working transparently with damaged contexts, and accepting that careful recording, conservation, and training are often more valuable than extensive excavation. In the future, I believe this balance, between research ambition and long-term stewardship, will be essential if archaeology is to remain both scientifically credible and socially responsible.
A rescue operation in the Great Pit of Tell K (2023), documenting and sampling collapsing sections of the 1930–31 French excavation trench, with zooarchaeologist Tina Jongsma and Project Director Sébastien Rey (photo by Eleonor Atkins).
What has been your experience working with epigraphers on the project? Do you have any suggestions for how cuneiformists and archaeologists can best work together?
Working with epigraphers has been one of the most intellectually productive and methodologically transformative aspects of the Girsu Project. Cuneiform specialists have been embedded within the fieldwork from the beginning, rather than consulted after excavation. This has fundamentally shaped how we identify, excavate, and interpret contexts containing texts. Having epigraphers involved on site has allowed us to recognise the significance of deposits in real time, refine excavation strategies, and recover contextual information that would otherwise be lost if texts were separated from their archaeological settings.
This collaboration has been especially important given the site’s history of disturbance and dispersal. Many of the Girsu tablets excavated in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are now held in museums across the world, often with minimal contextual documentation. Close cooperation between archaeologists and epigraphers has made it possible to reconnect newly excavated material with these legacy collections, reconstructing archives that are now physically dispersed but intellectually coherent. The discovery of the Sumerian Library has further underscored the value of this approach: understanding the organisation, function, and use of such a space depends as much on stratigraphy and architecture as it does on philological analysis.
Krisztián Simkó, Lead Site Epigrapher of the Girsu Project, reading a newly excavated tablet from the autumn 2024 season in the Tello dig house (photo by Alberto Giannese).
Based on this experience, I would strongly argue that archaeologists and cuneiformists work best together when neither discipline is treated as ancillary to the other. Texts should not be reduced to sources of historical “information” divorced from their material contexts, just as archaeology should not be seen merely as a means of recovering inscribed objects. Practical steps matter: shared research questions, joint training, integrated recording systems, and sustained dialogue in the field all help break down disciplinary silos. When epigraphers are involved in excavation planning and archaeologists engage seriously with textual practices, both fields gain a far richer understanding of how writing functioned within ancient Mesopotamian society.
More broadly, collaboration thrives when projects recognise that interpretation is a collective process. At Girsu, the most productive moments often emerge from conversations around a tablet still partly embedded in the ground, where material, spatial, and textual evidence intersect. Encouraging this kind of integrated working culture requires time, mutual respect, and institutional structures that support long-term collaboration. When those conditions are in place, the divide between archaeology and Assyriology becomes far less rigid, allowing us to approach early Mesopotamian history as a genuinely interdisciplinary field rather than a set of parallel specialisms.
The Girsu project has been shared through several highly viewed YouTube videos. How do you think archaeologists can most effectively communicate their findings with broader academic and public audiences?
Digital communication has become an integral part of my work both as a curator at the British Museum and as an academic researcher. In both contexts, I see public engagement not as something separate from scholarship, but as part of how archaeological knowledge is produced, tested, and shared. The decision to communicate the Girsu Project through YouTube and other digital platforms reflects this dual perspective: it extends the research process beyond specialist publications while remaining grounded in academic rigour and evidence-based interpretation.
British Museum video highlighting cuneiform tablet excavation at the Girsu Project. Published by the British Museum on YouTube.
What I have found particularly effective about video is its ability to communicate process rather than simply outcomes. Filming in the field allows viewers to see excavation as it unfolds, including uncertainty, debate, and collaboration between archaeologists, epigraphers, conservators, and local colleagues. This approach resonates with both scholarly and public audiences because it presents archaeology as an evolving practice rather than a finished narrative. From an academic standpoint, it also encourages reflexivity, forcing us to articulate our methods, assumptions, and interpretations with clarity and precision.
As a curator, I am especially attentive to whose voices are made visible. Digital platforms allow us to foreground the collaborative nature of archaeological work in ways that traditional academic formats often cannot, highlighting the central role of Iraqi partners, local communities, students, and specialists. This is not only a matter of representation, but of accuracy: projects like Girsu are collective enterprises, and effective communication should reflect that reality. The capacity of online media to reach multilingual and geographically diverse audiences is also crucial, particularly for work in Iraq, where local and international publics engage with the past in different but equally meaningful ways.
Ultimately, my approach to communication is shaped by the same principles that guide both my academic research and my curatorial practice: transparency, respect for the material and its contexts, and a commitment to public trust. Archaeologists do not need to simplify the past to communicate effectively; rather, they need to explain why their work matters and how knowledge is constructed. When used thoughtfully, platforms such as YouTube can connect field archaeology, museum collections, and scholarly debate, ensuring that research circulates well beyond specialist circles while remaining intellectually robust.
Finally, you have also been working in preparing the site for tourism and local employment – what are your thoughts on how archaeological sites like Tello can be effectively and sensitively integrated within their local areas?
Preparing Girsu for tourism and local employment has required us to rethink the role of archaeology within its surrounding landscape. Sites such as Tello cannot be treated as isolated monuments waiting passively for visitors; they are embedded within living social, economic, and environmental contexts. At Girsu, our aim has been to move gradually from excavation toward stewardship, ensuring that archaeological research contributes to local livelihoods, skills development, and long-term site care, rather than creating short-lived or extractive forms of engagement.
Iraqi trainees from the Mosul SBAH Office carrying out site conservation and heritage management work at the Girsu Bridge in 2018 (photo by Dani Tagen).
A central element of this transition has been the development of a heritage and tourism management planning process, conceived as a collaborative and phased approach to culture-led sustainable development in southern Iraq. Led initially by the Girsu Project in partnership with the Iraq State Board of Antiquities and Heritage, this process brings together local communities, provincial and national authorities, archaeologists, heritage professionals, educators, and media representatives to define a shared vision for the future of the Tello–Girsu landscape. Through interviews, workshops, and focus groups, this “bottom-linked” model ensures that planning is grounded locally while remaining aligned with national frameworks.
At the site level, this thinking is complemented by practical measures focused on outreach and visitor management. We have developed design, interpretive and visitor management principles that prioritise clarity, accessibility, and respect for the site’s fragility. These tools are intended not only for Girsu itself, but as adaptable models that can be applied across other archaeological sites in southern Iraq, helping to create a connected network of destinations rather than isolated tourist stops. In this way, tourism is framed as one component within a broader heritage ecosystem, not as an end in itself.
Looking ahead, I see the future of Girsu as lying less in continued large-scale excavation than in consolidation, conservation, and coordination. As part of a wider network of Iraqi and international projects working across the Sumerian heartland, Girsu is designed to act as a connecting point, sharing experience, testing models of best practice, and encouraging collaboration across sites facing similar challenges. By aligning archaeology, heritage management, and local development within a long-term framework, the project aims to show how sites like Tello can be integrated sensitively and productively into their local areas, ensuring that their value endures well beyond the lifespan of any single excavation project.
To learn more about The Girsu Project, please visit the below link: https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/projects/girsu-project
You can also watch a recent lecture on The Girsu Project by project director Sébastien Rey and site conservator and heritage manager Ebru Torun:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMnj4FAHZuc
Interview by Pavla Rosenstein