‘Spreadsheets of empire’: red tape goes back 4,000 years, say scientists after Iraq finds | Archaeology | The Guardian

Girsu, one of the world’s oldest cities, was revered in the 3rd millennium BC as the sanctuary of the Sumerian heroic god Ningirsu. Covering hundreds of hectares at its peak, it was among independent Sumerian cities conquered around 2300BC by the Mesopotamian king Sargon. He originally came from the city of Akkad, whose location is still unknown but is thought to have been near modern Baghdad.

Rey said: “Sargon developed this new form of governance by conquering all the Sumerian cities of Mesopotamia, creating what most historians call the first empire in the world.”
— Read on www.theguardian.com/science/2025/mar/15/stone-tablets-mesopotamia-iraq-red-tape-bureaucracy