The Sumerians were among the first to establish permanent communities and urban centers. They developed cities like Uruk, Ur, and Eridu, known for their well-organized infrastructure, massive architecture, and dense populations.
Sumerians achieved great advances in a variety of sectors, including agriculture (irrigation systems), mathematics (a 60-number system), construction (ziggurats), and astronomy (the lunar calendar).
Thousands of years ago, when much of the world was still covered in wild forests and undiscovered deserts, a dramatic transformation occurred in a rich region between two huge rivers—the Tigris and the Euphrates. The majority of people still roamed around in tiny groups during the Sumerian era, hunting and gathering food. However, something unique occurred near the banks of these rivers, where the yearly floods turned the soil dark and rich. The Sumerians acquired farming skills and planted crops in the soft, fertile soil, such as wheat and barley. The arid plains were turned into a patchwork of lush crops when they constructed irrigation canals to transport water from the rivers to their fields. If there was a consistent source of food, people may establish villages. These communities expanded into the first cities the world has ever seen as cities.
The Sumerians are considered the world’s earliest civilization in the modern sense since they were the first to express their ideas through symbols on clay. They established the groundwork for many concepts that emerged later in human history, including the notions of written words, laws, and cities. Their clay tablets, discovered thousands of years later by archaeologists, remind us of an era when humans first imagined creating something more than a village—something that would stand the test of time.