GIRSU

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Context

• Archaeologists have discovered two temples, one buried atop the other, in the ancient megacity of Girsu in Iraq.
• One temple is linked to Hercules and Alexander the Great.

About Girsu

• Girsu was a Sumer civilization city.
• It was discovered in the nineteenth century, with the first excavations taking place in the 1880s by the French archaeologist Ernest de Sarzec.
• It was noteworthy because it first revealed the existence of the Sumerian civilization to the world, as well as bringing to light some of Mesopotamian art and architecture's most important monuments.

Important points about Sumer Civilization City

• Sumer Civilization was one of the earliest known civilizations, flourishing between approximately 4100 and 1750 BCE in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia, which is now
• Sumer, on the other hand, was never a unified political unit, but rather an area of city-states, each with its ruler.
• The Sumerians were responsible for several technological advances, including time measurement and writing.
• They "invented" time by dividing it into 12-hour intervals, hours into 60 minutes, and minutes into 60 seconds.
• They established the first known cities as well as the first known code of law.
• In the fourth millennium BC, they created about a dozen city-states, according to archaeological evidence.
• They improved their writing skills by creating books, songs, and prayers.
• The Gilgamesh epic, considered the world's oldest surviving work of literature, is based on five Sumerian poems.
• They also improved upon existing technologies such as the wheel, the plough, and mathematics.
• They were also among the first cultures to manufacture beer, which the ancients saw as a key to a healthy heart and liver.

About Mesopotamia

• Mesopotamia (from the Greek, 'between two rivers') was an ancient region in the eastern Mediterranean bounded in the northeast by the Zagros Mountains and in the southeast by the Arabian Plateau, corresponding to modern-day Iraq and parts of Iran, Syria, Kuwait, and Turkey, and known as the Fertile Crescent and the cradle of civilization.