Sumerian civilization

Sumer occupied the southernmost part of Mesopotamia, between the lower Tigris and Euphrates rivers, in what is now southern Iraq. Communities lived there before the rise of the city-states conventionally identified with Sumerian civilization. Irrigated agriculture, trade and specialist crafts helped settlements grow into urban centres. The Sumerians were one of several peoples who shaped ancient Mesopotamia; the region's history also included Akkadian, Babylonian and other cultures.

Sumer was not a single country ruled continuously by one government. By the third millennium BCE it contained numerous city-states, including Uruk, Ur, Kish, Nippur and Lagash. Each centred on a walled city and its surrounding settlements and farmland. City-states had their own political authorities and religious institutions, and at times competed over land and water; some were temporarily brought under the rule of a stronger neighbour. Agriculture depended on organised water management, while trade and craft production supported the growth of towns and administrative institutions.

Some of the earliest known written records come from southern Mesopotamia in the late fourth millennium BCE. Early clay tablets, including examples associated with Uruk, recorded practical matters such as goods and rations. Signs gradually developed into cuneiform, a wedge-shaped script pressed into clay with a reed stylus. Cuneiform could record Sumerian and, later, other languages; its uses expanded from administration and trade to law, correspondence, literature and scholarship. The Epic of Gilgamesh is among the best-known works preserved in the broader Mesopotamian literary tradition.

Sumerian city-states were at times conquered or incorporated into wider kingdoms. In the 24th century BCE, Sargon of Akkad brought Sumer under the Akkadian Empire, though later periods saw renewed political authority centred in southern Mesopotamia, including the Third Dynasty of Ur. Over the early second millennium BCE, Sumerians lost a separate political and cultural identity, but Sumerian language, written traditions and institutions influenced successor societies. Archaeological finds and deciphered tablets continue to inform research on the region's early urban life.