The Temple of Ningirsu: The Culture of the Sacred in Mesopotamia. Two volumes in a slipcase, 280 x 230 mm, 812 pages, 276 colour illustrations. Lead author Sébastien Rey, British Museum curator and director of the Girsu Project, an ongoing collabo
Cutaway view of the Lower Construction on Tell K, dating back to around 2900 BCE. The principal sacred rooms were underground, accessed by a sloping walkway (on the left) and visible from a viewing gallery above.
A reconstruction of the upper layers of Tell K in the reign of Ur-Nanshe (c.2460–2425 BCE), showing the stepped mound, with the temenos wall enclosing the temple (centre) and the newly identified brewhouse (right).
A reconstruction of Gudea's fabulous New Eninnu on Tell A, with the partially completed temenos wall, the impressive temples to Ningirsu (left) and his wife, the goddess Bau (right), and the smaller, older Eninnu built by Gudea's father-in-law, Ur-B
The Hellenistic Eninnu, built above Gudea's Sumerian temple complex on Tell A, after the conquest of the region by Alexander the Great in 331 BCE. The revived temple was dedicated jointly to Ningirsu and Heracles, who were syncretised at that date.
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