Archaeological Find! The world's oldest bridge is being preserved in Iraq

 We love archaeology, and recently the British Museum published a blog about an ancient bridge foundation that was uncovered before World War 2. It was confirmed as a bridge that is over 4,000 years old. Below is the story of the continuing archaeology and a short video explaining it:   Here's the story:

The world's oldest bridge is being preserved in Iraq
British Museum.org - April 5, 2021 (Source: https://blog.britishmuseum.org/the-worlds-oldest-bridge-is-being-preserved-in-iraq/) 

The world’s oldest bridge, located in the south of Iraq, is soon to be to be saved for future generations thanks to the Museum’s pioneering emergency heritage management project.

Aerial view of the bridge and the city of Girsu in the background.

British Museum  4 April 2018

The bridge at Tello was built in the third millennium BC, making it the oldest bridge still in existence. This remarkable survival will be preserved by a team of British Museum archaeologists and Iraqi heritage professionals who are being trained to protect ancient sites that have suffered damage at the hands of Daesh (or the so-called Islamic State). Restoring the 4,000-year-old bridge will be a potent symbol for a nation emerging from decades of war.

Aerial view of the bridge in the ancient city of Girsu (modern Tello).

The British Museum is proud to be working with the Iraq State Board of Antiquities and Heritage to undertake this work as part of the Iraq Emergency Heritage Management Training Scheme. The bridge’s conservation will be part of the fourth phase of the Scheme, with field training of two groups of trainees beginning in autumn 2018. These latest trainees will be the first female archaeologists to be trained as part of the five-year project.

Trial of wall reconstruction techniques.

Saving the bridge could one day lead to the site welcoming tourists from around the globe to learn about Iraq’s rich heritage. Alongside the archaeological work, the project will see the creation of a visitor centre at the site, which will hopefully lead to the return of international tourists to the region, who have stayed away during recent conflict. The new visitor centre will explain in both English and Arabic how the bridge has contributed to world history, and tour groups from outside Iraq could begin to visit the site by 2020.

Built for the ancient Sumerian city of Girsu, the bridge was only rediscovered in 1929. Described at the time as an ‘enigmatic construction’, it has been variously interpreted as a temple, dam and water regulator. Recent studies using 1930s photographs as well as recently declassified satellite imagery from the 1960s, alongside new research at the site, have confirmed that it was a bridge over an ancient waterway and that it is (at the time of writing) the earliest-known bridge in the world. Since the excavations nearly 90 years ago, the bridge has remained open and exposed, with no identifiable conservation work to address its long-term stability or issues of erosion, and no plans to manage the site or tell its story to the wider world.

VIDEO: https://youtu.be/nyIvMPeg9go