Recent discoveries by archaeologists at the site of Girsu, now the modern-day tow of Tello, suggest they have unearthed a Greek temple to Alexander the Great, which may have been founded by the conqueror himself.

Experts working on the site in southern Iraq uncovered a 4,000-year-old ancient Sumerian temple, which featured cryptic Greek inscriptions.

British Museum archaeologists now believe that it had a Greek temple that was potentially commissioned by Alexander himself to honour ancient gods and his own divine status.

Supporting this belief is the discovery of a silver drachma coin minted around 330 BCE by Alexander’s troops as well as an altar and figurines which would typically have been left at Greek temples as offerings.

The figurines were terracotta cavalrymen similar to those in the Companion Cavalry which formed Alexander’s bodyguard, suggesting that whoever left them was extremely close to the Macedonian King, if not Alexander himself.

British Museum archaeologist Dr Sebastien Rey said to the Telegraph that the discovery is “truly mind-blowing”.

“We found offerings, the kinds of offerings that would be given after a battle, figures of soldiers and cavalrymen…There is a chance, we will never know for certain, that he (Alexander) might have come here, when he returned to Babylon, just before he died,” Dr Rey said.

The discovery also potentially reveals crucial information about ancient societies and their accurate historical knowledge and cultural memory.

The research suggests that Alexander travelled to the city of Girsu and this particular site, which is estimated to have been abandoned in 1750 BCE (roughly 1,000 years prior to Alexander’s arrival), due to the local people’s memory of its ties with the ancient Mesopotamian god, Ningirsu.

Dr Rey indicates that it is possible Alexander sought out this site after being told Ningirsu was the equivalent to Heracles, whom the Macedonian king considered his brother as he claimed his father was Zeus.

The site of Girsu was unearthed in the 19th century by French excavations, which found later Greek material mixed in with the older Sumerian items, with the only evidence that there may have been a Greek structure built on the site being a mysterious tablet.

This tablet bore a cryptic inscription written in Aramaic and Greek that simply stated “adad-nadin-a ḫḫe”, meaning “giver of the two brothers”.

Dr Rey believes this refers to Alexander’s purported father Zeus, who had given the world both the commander and his brothers Hercules and Ningirsu.

The archaeologist also revealed that this temple that was built on top of the sacred site may have been founded when the Macedonian conqueror passed through the region near Girsu on his return from a campaign in India in 323 BCE, making this potentially one of his final acts in his life.

Dr Rey concluded with a simple statement that these latest discoveries suggest the site does indeed honour Zeus and two divine sons, believed to be Heracles and Alexander.

The work has been conducted upon a joint initiative to save endangered heritage sites led by the British Museum, Getty and the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage (SBAH) of Iraq.

This came to fruition following the discovery by a team of researchers at the site in the autumn of 2022 of walls and administrative records of a huge palace and the sanctuary where the Greek temple was later constructed.

The team working at the site think the temple was originally used for feasts, animal sacrifices and other processions dedicated to Ningirsu.

Dr Rey said that, at the time of the discovery other scientists accused him of ‘making it up’ and wasting funds as they thought the site had already been excavated fully.