The earliest civilizations developed thousands of years before Christ, with many legacies still preserved to this day.
The White Temple, a ziggurat in the ancient city of Uruk from the Sumerian civilization. (Photo: Wikipedia)
What is the oldest civilization on Earth? Researchers seemed to have a definite answer 30 years ago: it was the Sumerian civilization.
Around 4000 BC, the earliest phase of the Sumerian civilization formed in Mesopotamia, an area that is now primarily Iraq. The Sumerians were named after the ancient city of Sumer, located a few miles south of modern-day Kut in eastern Iraq.
Archaeologists refer to the earliest phase of the Sumerian civilization as the Uruk period. Situated on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River, the ancient city of Uruk is now home to many of the oldest artifacts of the Sumerians that have been found.
The definition of what constitutes a civilization is quite vague, but generally, a civilization must have notable features, particularly urban centers (cities), irrigation systems, and writing. The Sumerians had all three.
About 2000 BC, the Sumerian civilization directly led to the Babylonian civilization in Mesopotamia, which is credited with discovering “mathematical truths” such as trigonometry and prime numbers, as well as squares and cubes—concepts that were named by the ancient Greeks over 1,000 years later.
The Sumerians may have also invented religion by constructing towering temples called ziggurats in their cities and establishing priestly castles for rituals dedicated to deities, according to American historian Samuel Noah Kramer.
However, new discoveries in recent decades have revealed some competing candidates for the title of “the oldest civilization on Earth.”
Some scholars argue that ancient Egypt may be on par with or even older than the Sumerian civilization. “I can say that Egypt and Sumer essentially appeared around the same time,” emphasized Philip Jones, curator and keeper of the artifact collection at the Babylon exhibit in the Pennsylvania Museum in Philadelphia, USA.
The Giza pyramid complex of ancient Egyptian civilization. (Photo: AFP)
In an interview with Live Science, Jones noted that decades of war and instability have prevented archaeologists from accessing many sites in Mesopotamia, but Egyptologists have continued to excavate. As a result, they have discovered Egyptian inscriptions dating to the same time as the earliest Sumerian writings, indicating that the earliest phases of both civilizations seem to have emerged around the same period: approximately 4000 BC.
There is another candidate: the Indus Valley civilization, which arose in the region that is now Afghanistan, Pakistan, and northwest India. According to the earliest artifacts found there, this civilization dates back at least to 3300 BC.
“But we may still find older things in the Indus Valley. I wouldn’t be surprised if that happens,” Jones added.
Jones believes that early trade along the fringes of the Indian Ocean helped form the first civilizations: the Sumerians in the north of the Persian Gulf, the Egyptians on the Red Sea coast, and the Indus Valley civilization further east. They may have developed from pre-civilization people who lived there before them, providing resources and ideas from farther afield.
Additionally, China is also considered one of the oldest civilizations. China has the world’s longest-existing written language. Experts estimate this language has been in use for about 6,000 years. Remarkably, some characters still in use today on artifacts, such as oracle bones or divination bones used for fortune-telling, have existed for at least 3,000 years. No other culture has such strong continuity.
However, there is still much debate regarding whether modern China can be considered a continuation of the ancient civilization. If so, China is over 5,000 years old. A decades-long study conducted by the Chinese Cultural Heritage Administration supports this claim. But not all historians agree.
First, this assertion holds significant political implications as it legitimizes the current structure of China.
Second, the region is so vast and encompasses many different ethnic groups that it is difficult to regard it as a homogeneous group with the same culture and traditions.
