Yesopotamia minister: scientists discover Iraq’s 2,300BC red tape

The red tape of government bureaucracy spans more than 4,000 years, according to new finds from the cradle of the world’s civilisations, Mesopotamia.

- Dalya Alberge

Hundreds of administrative tablets — the earliest physical evidence of the first empire in recorded history - have been discovered by archaeologists from the British Museum and Iraq. These texts detail the minutiae of government and reveal a complex bureaucracy - the red tape of an ancient civilisation.

These were the state archives of the ancient Sumerian site of Girsu, modern-day Tello, while the city was under the control of the Akkad dynasty from 2300 to 2150BC.

“It’s not unlike Whitehall,” said Sébastien Rey, the British Museum’s curator for ancient Mesopotamia and director of the Girsu Project. “These are the spreadsheets of empire, the very first material evidence of the very first empire in the world - the real evidence of the imperial control and how it actually worked.”

Girsu, one of the world’s oldest cities, was revered in the 3rd millennium BC as the sanctuary of the Sumerian heroic god Ningirsu. Covering hundreds of hectares at its peak, it was among independent Sumerian cities conquered around 2300BC by the Mesopotamian king Sargon. He originally came from the city of Akkad, whose location is still unknown but is thought to have been near modern Baghdad.