A Short History of Sumer and the Sumerian Civilization from Mesopotamia

The Sumerians flourished in Mesopotamia between c. 4100 – 1750 BCE in the region of Sumer which was not a country, but a region made up of a number of walled city-states, each with its own king. The Sumerian civilization developed the first schools and jobs and developed the first cosmology and cosmogony, the concept of time, some of the oldest wheeled vehicles and the first-ever city. One of the most important innovations of the Sumerians was writing which is known as cuneiform, and was a script which was used by a number of Mesopotamian cultures including the Babylonians, the Akkadians and the Elamites.

The archaeology of Sumer establishes Uruk as the oldest city; however, according to the Sumerians, Eridu was the first city in the world, presided over by Enki, the god of water and wisdom. Eridu was seen as the home of the gods and the birthplace of the rules governing civilisation and, in Mesopotamian mythology, is comparable to the biblical Garden of Eden.