2025 · Peer-reviewed article · Open access
The Flooding of Lagash (Iraq)
Evidence for a major flood and the reorganization of an early Mesopotamian city.
The study
The article brings remote sensing, magnetometry, excavation stratigraphy, luminescence dating, and historical evidence together to examine a major late Early Dynastic flood at Lagash.
It argues that hydrological failure during or immediately after Lugalzagesi’s assault buried part of the city beneath more than a meter of sediment and contributed to the reorganization of its urban landscape.
Read the open-access articleCitation
Goodman, Reed, Liviu Giosan, Zhixiong Shen, Paul Zimmerman, Andreas Lang, Stefan Constantinescu, Sara Pizzimenti, Zaid Alrawi, and Holly Pittman. 2025. “The Flooding of Lagash (Iraq): Evidence for Urban Destruction Under Lugalzagesi, the King of Uruk and Umma.” Geoarchaeology 40(5): e70027.