1.00:14 Conditions that gave rise to Egyptian civilization

2.01:55 Sumer predates Egypt

3.02:47 Gods and humans in Western realist art

4.06:02 Egyptian hieroglyphs

5.07:38 Changing understandings of ancient Egypt

6.10:32 The Nile nurtured ancient Egyptian civilization

An early civilization in southern Mesopotamia, now southeastern Iraq, established by the Sumerians from 4100 to 2000 BCE. It lay in the Tigris and Euphrates basin, with Uruk as its capital and Sumerian as its official language.

An ancient Sumerian city in southwestern Mesopotamia, on the right bank of the lower Euphrates in what is now Iraq. In remote antiquity, the Sumerians created the Uruk culture here, circa 3400—3100 BCE. Its inhabitants made bronze and pottery, erected enormous monumental towers, and developed pictorial writing that became the germ of Mesopotamian cuneiform. Uruk later emerged as an early city-state and religious center.

An Athenian widely regarded as the greatest Classical sculptor. His celebrated works included the Statue of Zeus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the Athena Parthenos. Both were destroyed long ago, but many ancient copies survive.