Before Egypt built its pyramids, before Greece invented philosophy, before the Bible was written — the Sumerians had already created writing, law, astronomy, mathematics, organised religion and the world's first literature. Everything that followed stands on Sumerian ground.
The Sumerians called their land Ki-en-gir — "the land of civilised lords." They invented the wheel, the arch, the 60-second minute, the 360-degree circle, the 12-month calendar and the first legal codes. They wrote the world's first love poetry, the first hymns, the first lamentations. They mapped the stars and gave them names that still survive in Western astrology.
What we call Western civilisation is built on a Sumerian foundation that most people have never encountered directly. The flood before Noah, the garden before Eden, the hero before Hercules — all of it was Sumerian first.