A House in Girsu: Searching for Near Eastern Archaeology in Finnish Collections

Application summary

A 1977 gift to the President of Finland by the government of Iraq, included a clay foundation nail from the E-nninu, 𒂍𒐐, a temple to the warrior god Ningirsu, in the Sumerian city of Girsu in southern Mesopotamia, built from mud bricks in the 22nd century BCE. The nail, once belonging to the National Museum of Iraq, was discovered unpublished in 2022 during preparations for the exhibition “Exploring the Ancient Near East” (Tutkimusmatkoja muinaiseen Lähi-itään). In the project, “A House in Girsu”, I attempt to uncover the ancient and modern journeys of these nails, through a combination of historical and archival research, speculative narratives about the past, experimental video and performance. The project takes an interest in the history of Near Eastern archaeology in Finland, a country that did not actively take part in the colonization and archaeological plunder of Western Asia but that pioneered in the study of Assyriology. Conceived as a parafiction, set in different times, from the construction of the temple, to the present discovery of the nail, the video-performance incorporates different historical, political, personal and archaeological narratives about the future of the remote past in the present. The project is part of a multi-year project working on Mediterranean and Middle Eastern archaeological collections and their contemporary historical narratives in Turkey, Italy, Greece and Cyprus.