The earliest known civilization in Mesopotamia (c. 4500-1900 BCE), credited with inventing writing, the wheel, the sailboat, and the first city-states.
From 'Sumer,' the name of their land in southern Mesopotamia, possibly meaning 'land of the civilized lords' in their own language. The term was preserved in Akkadian as 'Šumerû' and came into English through archaeological scholarship.
These people invented almost everything we associate with civilization in just a few centuries - writing, cities, schools, courts, even the 60-minute hour and 360-degree circle! They're like humanity's beta testers, figuring out urban life from scratch around 3500 BCE.
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