Citation: Jongsma-Greenfield, T.; Di Michele, A.; Husain, F.; Rey, S. Sacred Space and Ritual Behaviour in Ancient Mesopotamia: A View from Tello/Girsu. Humans 2024, 4, 239–263. https://doi.org/10.3390/ humans4030015 Academic Editor: Cheryl P. Claassen Received: 1 April 2024 Revised: 12 June 2024 Accepted: 18 June 2024 Published: 12 August 2024 Copyright: © 2024 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). Article Sacred Space and Ritual Behaviour in Ancient Mesopotamia: A View from Tello/Girsu Tina Jongsma-Greenfield 1,2, * , Angelo Di Michele 3 , Fatima Husain 3 and Sébastien Rey 3, * 1 McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3ER, UK 2 Department of Anthropology, University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg, MB R3B 2E9, Canada 3 Department of Middle East, The British Museum, London WC1B 3DG, UK; angelo.dimichele@gmail.com (A.D.M.); croissysurseine90@gmail.com (F.H.) * Correspondence: tlg26@cam.ac.uk or t.greenfield@uwinnipeg.ca (T.J.-G.); srey@britishmuseum.org (S.R.) Abstract: Girsu, the modern site of Tello (southern Iraq), represents one of the earliest known urban centres of the ancient world, along with Uruk, Eridu, and Ur. During the 3rd millennium BCE (3000–2000 BCE), Girsu was revered as the sanctuary of the Sumerian heroic deity Ningirsu, who fought with supernatural beasts and made possible the introduction of irrigation and agriculture in Sumer. While much is known about the gods, their roles, and rituals inside the temples, there is little textual or archaeological evidence concerning the rituals that took place in the large open-air plazas adjacent to the temples. These areas within the sacred precinct were where the general population would gather to participate in festivals and ceremonies to honour the gods. To better understand the ancient cultic realm in southern Mesopotamia, an in-depth investigation of a favissa (ritual pit) discovered within the sacred precinct at Girsu was undertaken. The excavations recovered a large quantity of ceramics and animal remains that had been used for ritual purposes. Through the study of archaeological remains of cultic spaces at Girsu, information on ritual behaviour such as sacrificial animal slaughtering and consumption for the purpose of feasting, the types of libations provided to quench the thirst of the gods, and the distance travelled to take part in the annual festivals to pay homage to the patron god of their sacred city were explored. Analysis of the associated ceramics, cuneiform texts, and zooarchaeological remains (including stable isotope data), allowed a multi- faceted and integrative approach to better understand ceremonial behaviour and ritual feasting in this sacred city. New insights into communal and performative participation in ceremonies, especially by non-elite individuals, are generated. These data increase our knowledge not only of how Girsu’s citizens organised their sacred spaces and religious festivals, but also of how they behaved in order to satisfy the ever-demanding needs of their gods. Keywords: ritual; Tello/Girsu; Mesopotamia; Early Dynastic; feasting; sacrifice; animals; pottery 1. Introduction The focus of this study is to determine patterns of ritual behaviour in the 3rd millen- nium (mill.). city of ancient Girsu (modern-day Tello) via the analyses of both ceramics and zooarchaeological remains recently excavated in the sacred precinct of the Ningirsu temple (Figure 1). The 3rd mill. of Southern Mesopotamia saw the appearance of mature city-states during the Early Dynastic Period (2950-2350 BCE). This was followed by the Akkadian Period (2350-2200 BCE) and the culmination of Nation States through the Ur III Period (2112-2004 BCE) at the end of the millennium (see Supplementary Materials Table S1). The region’s ancient textual archives are rich in economic documents that record information on administrative transactions, mercantile activities, the diets of the privileged, and animal exploitation strategies to support the elites and public institutions (temples, palaces). The Early Dynastic Period, in particular, can be summarised as a time of com- plex irrigation-dominated agro–pastoral economics. It was the zenith of political, social, Humans 2024, 4, 239–263. https://doi.org/10.3390/humans4030015 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/humans