The Flooding of Lagash: Evidence for Urban Destruction under Lugalzagesi, the King of Uruk

Abstract

New research at Tell al-Hiba, ancient Lagash, has uncovered evidence of extensive flooding and sitewide destruction in the latter half of the third millennium BC. Specifically, we characterize and date a prominent water-formed feature that crosses the heart of Lagash’s former temple district. Geoarchaeological trenching and geophysical prospection indicate that the feature, consisting of a series of meander point and counterpoint bars, intercepted and overlies late Early Dynastic cultural materials, suggesting that upstream river avulsion resulted in the rapid and energetic fluvial sedimentation. Based on the site’s broader geomorphological context, this process would have played out widely across the city’s hinterland, leaving lasting consequences, including spatially extensive soil salinization and waterlogging. Additional archaeological, radiometric, and historical data allow us further to propose that this flooding likely developed during or shortly after Lagash was attacked by Lugalzagesi, a king of Uruk. In combination with the site’s surface ceramic record, our evidence indicates that much of the city’s population left in direct response. Ultimately, this work provides evidence of urban environmental devastation through warfare at an early period in time, and it also contributes to the chronometry of 3rdmillennium dynastic history in Mesopotamia.