What’s an ancient Greek brick doing in a Sumerian city? An archeological investigation

In this short, the British Museum curator Sébastien Rey untangles an intricate archaeological puzzle some six millennia in the making. First, Rey introduces viewers to an excavation site of the Sumerian city of Girsu in modern-day Iraq, where, among other projects, his team has worked to restore the world’s oldest bridge. He then details the mystery at the video’s centre by focusing on two very similar bricks unearthed at the site, each of them a piece of the same temple. However, they’re inscribed in different languages, with one bearing cuneiform, and the other quite surprisingly bearing both Aramaic and ancient Greek. Deftly navigating many twists, turns, complications and even a cameo appearance from Alexander the Great, Rey explains how only in 2022 were archeologists finally able to make sense, seemingly, of this mystery brick. Hidden in the knotty details is a greater truth that making sense of archeological ruins can itself occasionally feel like finding a single brick in a massive dirt heap.