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Sumer (/ˈsuːmər/) is the earliest known civilization in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia (south-central Iraq), emerging during the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Ages between the sixth and fifth millennium BC. -
Left: Sculpture of the head of Sumerian ruler Gudea, c. 2150 BC. Right: cuneiform characters for Saĝ-gíg (𒊕 𒈪), "Black Headed Ones", the native designation for the Sumerians. The first is the pictographic character for "head" (Saĝ (linear script, head).jpg, later Saĝ (Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform, head).jpg), the second the character for "night", and for "black" when pronounced gíg (Gíg (linear script, night-black).jpg, later Gíg (Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform.
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Egypt reached the pinnacle of its power in the New Kingdom, ruling much of Nubia and a sizable portion of the Levant, after which it entered a period of slow decline. During the course of its history, Egypt was invaded or conquered by a number of foreign powers, including the Hyksos, the Libyans, the Nubians, the Assyrians, the Achaemenid Persians, and the Macedonians under Alexander the Great. The Greek Ptolemaic Kingdom, formed in the aftermath of Alexander's death, ruled Egypt until 30 BC. -
Ancient Egypt was a civilization in Northeast Africa situated in the Nile Valley. Ancient Egyptian civilization followed prehistoric Egypt and coalesced around 3100 BC (according to conventional Egyptian chronology)[1] with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under Menes (often identified with Narmer).[2] The history of ancient Egypt occurred as a series of stable kingdoms.