Lagash

Gleick traces the history of conflicts to the first known war over water nearly 4,500 years ago between the ancient Sumerian city-states of Lagash and Umma in what is now southern Iraq.

Given that beer drinking was widespread among the ancient Sumerians inhabiting Lagash at the time, many envisioned the space as a sort of ancient gastropub.

Associated Press writers Nabil al-Jurani in Lagash and Ali Abdul Hassan in Baghdad contributed to this report.

The digs at Lagash, which was first excavated in 1968, had shut down after 1990, and the site remained dormant until 2019.

The title comes from the inscription on a pillar recently rediscovered in the British Museum’s collection that is believed to be the oldest surviving boundary marker: It separated the territories of the states of Lagash and Umma in present-day Iraq.