Peer-reviewed article, open access
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.
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.