TūLūl al-Baqarat (Iraq) is located about 200 km south-east of Baghdad and represents a very ancient human settlement area. Since 2013, the Italian archaeological expedition of the Centro Ricerche Archeologiche e Scavi di Torino and of the University of Turin carries out researches on the ancient territory, undertaking surveys and excavations in some sectors of the area. The analysis, still ongoing, led to the identification of one of the archaeological mounds with the ancient Sumerian shrine of the city of Keš which was dedicated, at least since the third millennium BC, to the important goddess Nin-ḫur-saĝ; it was already known from cuneiform sources, but its location was until now unknown. Not far from this important religious center there is an another settlement which, based on the archaeological evidence, can be dated to the first centuries of the fourth millennium, a crucial and little known period that predates the birth of the first urban settlements in southern Mesopotamia.