History Begins at Sumer: Thirty-nine Firsts in Recorded History

Here's a great book about the Sumerians. A society of people that seemed to arrive over night and got a lot of things right the first time. Truly amazing culture. If you're into ancient history, and all things Sumerian, I recommend this book. I'll quote a few paragraphs from a few chapters to get your feet wet.

History Begins at Sumer: Thirty-nine Firsts in Recorded History
by Samuel Noah Kramer

Samuel Noah Kramer was Clark Research Professor Emeritus of Assyriology at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was also Curator Emeritus of the Tablet Collections.

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Introduction to Samuel Noah Kramer

For the past 26 years I have been active in Sumerological research, particularly in the field of Sumerian literature. The ensuing studies have appeared primarily in the form of highly specialized books, monographs, & articles scattered in a number of scholarly journals. The present book brings together-for the layman, humanist, & scholar - some of the significant results embodied in those Sumerological researches & publications.

The book consists of 25 essays strung on a common thread: they all treat of "firsts" in man's recorded history. They are thus of no little significance for the history of ideas & the study of cultural origins. But this is only secondary & accidental, a by-product, as it were, of all Sumerological research. The main purpose of the essays is to present a cross section of the spiritual & cultural achievements of one of man's earliest & most creative civilizations. All the major fields of human endeavor are represented; governments & politics, education & literature, philosophy & ethics, law & justice, even agriculture & medicine. The available evidence is sketched in what, it is hoped, is clear & unambiguous language. Above all, the ancient documents themselves are put before the reader either in full or in the form of essential excerpts, so that he can sample their mood & flavor as well as follow the main threads of the argument.

Chapter 1 Education: The First Schools
Chapter 2 Schooldays: The First Case of "Apple-Polishing"
Chapter 3 Father and Son: The First Case of Juvenile Delinquency
Chapter 4 International Affairs: The First "War of Nerves"
Chapter 5 Government: The First Bicameral Congress
Chapter 6 Civil War in Sumer: The First Historian
Chapter 7 Social Reform: The First Case of Tax Reduction
Chapter 8 Law Codes: The First "Moses"
Chapter 9 Justice: The First Legal Precedent
Chapter 10 Medicine: The First Pharmacopoeia
Chapter 11 Agriculture: The First "Farmer's Almanac"
Chapter 12 Horticulture: The First Experiment in Shade-Tree Gardening
Chapter 13 Philosophy: Man's First Cosmogony and Cosmology
Chapter 14 Ethics: The First Moral Ideals
Chapter 15 Suffering and Submission: The First "Job"
Chapter 16 Wisdom: The First Proverbs and Sayings
Chapter 17 "Aesopica": The First Animal Fables
Chapter 18 Logomachy: The First Literary Debates
Chapter 19 Paradise: The First Biblical Parallels
Chapter 20 A Flood: The First "Noah"
Chapter 21 Hades: The First Tale of Resurrection
Chapter 22 Slaying of the Dragon: The First ''St. George"
Chapter 23 Tales of Gilgamesh: The First Case of Literary Borrowing
Chapter 24 Epic Literature: Man's First Heroic Age
Chapter 25 To the Royal Bridegroom: The First Love Song
Chapter 26 Book Lists: The First Library Catalogue
Chapter 27 World Peace and Harmony: Man's First Golden Age
Chapter 28 Ancient Counterparts of Modern Woes: The First "Sick" Society
Chapter 29 Destruction and Deliverance: The First Liturgic Laments
Chapter 30 The Ideal King: The First Messiahs
Chapter 31 Shulgi of Ur: The First Long-Distance Champion
Chapter 32 Poetry The First Literary Imagery
Chapter 33 The Sacred Marriage Rite: The First Sex Symbolism
Chapter 34 Weeping Goddesses: The First Mater Dolorosa
Chapter 35 U-a A-u-a: The First Lullaby
Chapter 36 The Ideal Mother: Her First Literary Portrait
Chapter 37 Three Funeral Chants: The First Elegies
Chapter 38 The Pickaxe and the Plow: Labor's First Victory
Chapter 39 Home of the Fish: The First Aquarium

Chapter 1 Education: The First Schools

The Sumerian school was the direct outgrowth of the invention & development of the cuneiform system of writing, Sumer's most significant contribution to civilization. The first written documents were found in a Sumerian city named Erech. They consist of more than a thousand small pictographic clay tablets inscribed primarily with bits of economic & administrative memoranda. But among them are several which contain word lists intended for study & practice. That is, as early as 3000 B.C., some scribes were already thinking in terms of teaching & learning. Progress was slow in the centuries that flowered. But by the middle of the third millennium, there must have been a number of schools throughout Sumer where writing was taught formally. In ancient Shuruppak, the home city of the Sumerian "Noah", there were excavated, in 1902 - 1903, a considerable number of school "textbooks" dating from about 2500 B.C.

However, it was in the last half of the third millennium that the Sumerian school system matured & flourished

The original goal of the Sumerian school was what we would term "professional" - that is, it was first established for the purpose of training the scribes required to satisfy the economic & administrative demands of the land, primarily those of the temple & palace. This continued to be the major aim of the Sumerian growth & development, & particularly as a result of the ever widening curriculum, the school came to be the center of culture & learning in Sumer. Within its walls flourished the scholar-scientist, the man who studied whatever theological, botanical, zoological, mineralogical, geographical, mathematical, grammatical, & linguistic knowledge was current in his day, & who in some cases added to this knowledge.

Moreover, rather unlike present-day institutions of learning, the Sumerian school was also the center of what might be termed creative writing. It was here that the literary creations of the past were studied & copied; here, too, new ones were composed. While it is true that the majority of graduates from the Sumerian schools became scribes in the service of the temple & palace, & among the rich & powerful of the land, there were some who devoted their lives teaching & learning. Like the university professor of today, many of these ancient scholars depended on their teaching salaries for their livelihood, & devote themselves to research & writing in their spare time. The Sumerian school, which probably began as a temple appendage, became in time a secular institution; its curriculum, too, became largely secular in character. The teachers were paid, apparently, out of tuition fees collected from the students.

Chapter 8 Law Codes: The First "Moses"

The MOST ANCIENT law code brought to light up till 1947 was that promulgated by Hammurabi, the far-famed Semitic King who began his rule about 1750 B.C. Written in the cuneiform script & in the Semitic language known as Babylonian, it contains close to 3000 laws sandwiched in between boastful prologue, & a curse-laden epilogue.

In 1947 there came to light a law code promulgated by King Lipit-Ishtar, who preceded Hammurabi by more than 150 years. The Lipit-Ishtar code, as it now generally called, is inscribed not on a stele but on a sun baked clay tablet. It is written in cuneiform script, but in non-Semitic Sumerian language

But the Lipit-Ishtar's claim to fame as the world's first lawgiver was short-lived. In 1948, Taha Baqir, the curator of the Iraq Museum in Baghdad, was digging in an obscure mound called Harmal, & he announced the discovery of 2 tablets inscribed with an older law code

In a brief prologue that precedes the laws (there is no epilogue), a king by the name of Bilalamais mentioned. He may have lived some 70 years before LipitIshtar.
This ruler, who founded the now well-known Third Dynasty of Ur, began his reign, even according to lowest chronological estimates, about 2050 B.C., some 300 years before the Babylonian King Hammurabi

Since Sumerian law tablets are extremely rare, I had No. 3191 brought to my working table at once. There it lay, a sun-baked tablet, light brown in color, 20 by 10 centimeters in size. More than half of the writing was destroyed, and what was preserved seemed at first hopelessly unintelligible. But after several days of concentrated study, its contents began to become clear & take shape, & I realized with no little excitement that what I held in my hand was a copy of the oldest law code as yet known to man.

The tablet was divided by the ancient scribe into eight columns, 4 on the obverse & 4 on the reverse. Each of the columns contains about 45 small ruled spaces, less than half of which legible. The obverse contains a long prologue which is only partially intelligible, because of the numerous breaks in the text. Briefly, it runs as follows:

After the world had been created, & after the fate of the land Sumer & of the city Ur (the Biblical Ur of Chaldees) had been decided, An & Enlil, the 2 leading deities of the Sumerian pantheon, appointed the moon-god Nanna as the King of Ur. One day, Ur-Nammu was selected by the god to rule over Sumer & Ur as his earthly representative. The new king's first acts had to do with the political & military safety of Ur & Sumer. In particular he found it necessary to do battle with the bordering city-state of Lagash, which was expanding at Ur's expense. He defeated & put to death it's ruler, Namhani, and then, "with the power of Nanna, the king of the city," he reestablished Ur's former boundaries.

Now it came time to turn to internal affairs, & to institute social & moral reforms. He removed the "chiselers" & the grafters, or, as the code itself describes them, the "grabbers" of the citizens oxen, sheep, & donkeys. He then established & regulated honest & unchangeable weights & measures. He saw to it that "the orphan did not fall a prey to the wealthy": "the widow did not fall prey to the powerful": "the man of one shekel did not fall a prey to the man of one mina (60 shekels)." Although the relevant passage is destroyed on the tablet, it was no doubt to ensure justice in the land & to promote the welfare of its citizens that he promulgated the laws which followed.

Chapter 10 Medicine: The First Pharmacopoeia

An anonymous Sumerian physician, who lived toward the end of the third millennium B.C., decided to collect & record, for his colleagues & students, his more valuable medical prescriptions. He prepared a tablet of moist clay, 3 1/4 by 6 1/4 inches in size, sharpened a reed stylus to a wedge-shaped end, & wrote down, in the cuneiform script of his day, more than a dozen of his favorite remedies. This clay document, the oldest medical "handbook" known to man, lay buried in the Nippur ruins for more than four thousand years, until it was excavated by an American expedition & brought to the University Museum in Philadelphia.

Chapter 20 A Flood: The First "Noah"

That the Biblical deluge story is not original with the Hebrews redactors of the Bible has been known from the time of the discovery & deciphering of the eleventh tablet of the Babylonian "Epic of Gilgamesh" by the British Museum's George Smith. The Babylonian deluge myth itself, however, is of Sumerian origin. In 1914 Arno Poebel published a fragment consisting of the lower third of a six-column Sumerian tablet in the Nippur collection of the University Museum, the contents of which are devoted in large part to the story of the flood. This fragment still remains unique & unduplicated, & although scholars have been "all eyes & ears" for new deluge tablets, not a single additional fragment has turned up in any museum, private collection, or excavation. The piece published by Poebel is still our only source, & the translation prepared by him is still basic & standard.

The contents of this lone tablet are noteworthy not only for the flood episode, although that is its main theme, but also for the passages preceding & introducing the deluge story. Badly broken as the text is, these passages are nevertheless of significance for Sumerian cosmogony & cosmology. They include a number of revealing statements concerning the creation of man, the origin of kingship, & the existence of at least 5 antediluvian cities. Here, then, is practically the entire extant text of the myth with all its tantalizing obscurities & uncertainties. It provides an apt example of what the cuneiform is up against, and of the surprises the future holds in store for him.

Since it is the lower thrid of the tablet that is preserved, we start right off with a break of some 37 lines, & there is no way of knowing just how the myth began. We then find a deity addressing other deities, probably stating that he will save mankind from destuciton & that as a result man will build the cities & temples of the gods. Following the address are 3 lines which are difficult to relate to the context: they seem to describe the actions performed by the deity to make his words effective. Then come 4 lines concerned with the creation of man, animals, & plants. The entire passage reads:

"My mankind, in its destruction I will..,
To Nintu I will return the .., of my creatures,
I will return the people to their settlements,
Of the cities, they will build their places of the divine laws,
I will make restful their shade,
Of our houses, they will lay their bricks in pure places,
The places of our decisions they will found in pure places."
He directed the pure fire-quenching water,
Perfected the rites & the exalted divine laws,
On the earth he...d, placed the... there,
After An, Enil, Enki, & Ninhursag
Had fashioned the blackheaded people,
Vegetation luxuriated from the earth,
Animals, four-legged (creatures) of the plain, were brought artfully into existence.

Chapter 27 World Peace and Harmony: Man's First Golden Age

In CLASSICAL mythology, the Golden Age is represented as an age of perfect happiness, when men lived without toil or strife. In Sumerian literature, we have, preserved for us on a tablet, man's first conception of the Golden Age. The Sumerian view of the Golden Age is found in the epic tale "Enmerkar & the Land of Aratta" (See Chapter 4). In this tale there is a passage of twenty-one lines that describes a once-upon-a-time state of peace & security, & ends with man's fall from this blissful state. Here is the passage:

Once upon a time, there was no snake, there was no scorpion
There was no hyena, there was no lion,
There was no wilddog, no wolf,
There was no fear, no terror,
Man had no rival.

Once upon a time, the lands of Shubur & Hamazi,
Many (?)-tongued Sumer, the great land of princeships'
divine laws,
Uri, the land having all that is appropriate,
The land Martu, resting in security,
The whole universe, the people in unison (?),
To Enil in one tongue gave praise.

(But) then, the father-lord, the father-prince, the father-king,
Enki, the father-lord, the father-prince, the father-king,
The irate (?) father-lord, the irate (?) father-prince, the irate (?) father-king,
.....abundance.....
.....(5 lines destroyed)
..man....

Chapter 30 The Ideal King: The First Messiahs

Beginning with Ur-Nammu of Ur (& probably even earlier), & continuing right down to Hammurabi of Babylon & his successors, the Sumerians poets composed a varied assortment of royal hymns that glorify the ruler in hyperbolic diction & extravagant imagery; they tell us very little about the king's true character& authentic historical achievements, but they do reveal the ideal type of ruler, a kind of Sumerian Messiah, whom the people must have envisaged & longed for.

To start with the ideal king's embryonic beginnings, it is of interest to note that poets who composed the royal hymns conceived of his birth on 2 levels, the human & the divine, & that it was the latter rather than the former that was close to their hearth-hardly ever do they mention the name of the real parents of the king. On the Divine level, on the contrary, the hymnal poets rarely fail to mention the ruler's parentage, although the relevant statements are usually rather brief & at times contradictory, or seemingly so.

One of the more poetic stylistic features of the royal hymns is the use of imaginative symbolism taken primarily from the animal kingdom, and more rarely from the world of vegetation. Thus in connection with the royal birth, a king may be described as a "true offspring engendered by a bull, speckled of head & body"; "a calf of an all-white cow, thick of neck raised in a stall": "a king born of a wild cow, nourished (?) on cream & milk"; "a calf born in a stall of plenty" "a young bull in a year of plenty, fed on rich milk in halcyon days"; "a fierce-eyed lion born of a dragon": "a fierce panther (?) fed on rich milk, a thick-horned bull born to a big lion:: :a mighty warrior born to a lion."

The king came into the world blessed from the womb, if we take literally such exulting phrases as "from the womb of my mother Ninsun a sweet blessing went forth from me"; "I am a warrior form the womb, I am a mighty man from birth"; "I am a noble son blessed from the womb"; "I am a king adorned, a fecund seed from the womb"; "a prince fit (?) for kingship from the fecund womb." But it must have been during , or following, his coronation, or when he was about to conduct a campaign against the enemy that the poets envisaged him as receiving various divine blessings, most frequently from Enil of Nippur. Usually this came through the intervention of another diety

Thanks for sharing S & F.

I'm adding this book to my reading list.

Very interesting read so far, but what just crossed my mind while reading was, how accurate is this information and how much can we trust it, before i indulge myself anymore

Everything matches what little I know of the official Sumer acording to Archaeology and Anthropology, and the layout of the opening post is a delight to read. Besides the translations tickle my ego a little bit and make the experience of reliving the past while reading them that much more entrancing. The god of irritability eh. Heh.


David Grouchy

How could I miss this chapter! (silly 4 hour edit time limit )

Chapter 35 U-a A-u-a: The First Lullaby

THIS UNIQUE COMPOSITION, the only one of its kind thus far known from the Ancient Near East, probably consists entirely of a chant purported to be uttered by the wife of Shulgi, who seems to have been anxious & troubled by the ill health of one of her sons. As is true of lullabies in general, most of the mother's chant is addressed directly to the child, but in several of the preserved passages she soliloquizes about her son in the third person, & in one passage she addresses Sleep personified.

The contents of this composition whose translation & translation & interpretation are difficult & to a considerable degree uncertain, may nevertheless be sketched in the following way: the poem begins witha rather wistful & wishful soliloquy in which the mother seems to reassure herself in the ururu-chant (perhaps a chant of joy) that her son will grow big & sturdy.

U-a a-u-a (prnounced oo-a a-oo-a)
In my ururu-chant - may he grow big
In my ururu-chant - may he grow large,
Like the irina-tree may he grow stout of root,
Like the shakir-plant may he grown broad of crown.

She then seems to try to buoy up her son's spirit with the promise of oncoming sleep.

The lord (perhaps Sleep)....
Among its burgeoning apple trees, by the river arrayed,
He (Sleep?) will spread his hand over him who is...,
He will lift his hand over him who is lying down,
My son, sleep is about to overtake you,
Sleep is about to settle over you.

Having mentioned sleep, the mother now addresses it directly, urging it to close her son's wakeful eyes & not let his babbling tongue shut out his sleep.

Come Sleep, Come Sleep,
Come to where my son is,
Hurry (?) Sleep to where my son is,
Put to sleep his restless eyes,
Put your hand on his painted eyes,
And as for his babbling tongue,
Let not the babbling tongue shut out his sleep

Originally posted by CharterZZ
Very interesting read so far, but what just crossed my mind while reading was, how accurate is this information and how much can we trust it, before i indulge myself anymore

I'm glad you all like it. I wouldn't worry about Samuel Noah Kramer's validity. He was a Clark Research Professor Emeritus of Assyriology at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was also Curator Emeritus of the Tablet Collections.

According to Wiki
en.wikipedia.org...

Samuel Noah Kramer (September 28, 1897–November 26, 1990) was one of the world's leading Assyriologists and a world renowned expert in Sumerian history and Sumerian language.

www.nytimes.com...

Samuel Noah Kramer, 93, Dies; Was Leading Authority on Sumer

Kramer is must reading for any serious student of history. Another must-read author of Sumerian history is C. Leonard Woolley. I'd also suggest not to limit yourself to studying only the Sumerians as that produces a rather myopic view of them, but read about other cultures from that region and general time period - the Akkadians, the Ubaid culture, the Elamites, the Guteans, etc.


Reading their real history, versus "Ancient Astronaut" history, does knock the Sumerians down from this lofty pedestal they've been put on, yet at the same time shows them to be an even more fascinating culture.

While laudable, and interesting, I seriously doubt the claims of "firsts" without a ton of caveats...There were lots of civs before Sumer in other parts of the world.

Not to mention those we're not really sure of but whose presence we get tantalizing glimpses of, such as the 8,000 year old ruins of submerged Indian cities,

It's like the "Greek" invention of democracy..true democracy was invented by the Iriquois...what the Greeks practiced wasn't quite it.

Originally posted by Blackmarketeer
Kramer is must reading for any serious student of history. Another must-read author of Sumerian history is C. Leonard Woolley. I'd also suggest not to limit yourself to studying only the Sumerians as that produces a rather myopic view of them, but read about other cultures from that region and general time period - the Akkadians, the Ubaid culture, the Elamites, the Guteans, etc.


Reading their real history, versus "Ancient Astronaut" history, does knock the Sumerians down from this lofty pedestal they've been put on, yet at the same time shows them to be an even more fascinating culture.

Thanks for the heads up on C. Leonard Woolley!

I wouldn't say the AA theory knocks them, but instead lifts them up even higher. I say that because thanks to the AA theory people now know of the Sumerians, and from there our ancient recorded past. I'm one of those people. Always interested in history, when I learned of the Sumerians, it was on! But it is the AA theory that brings people to want to learn more about this amazing culture. For those stuck on Sitchen & wondering if there's other authors out there here's Kramer, and others. They could have looked up Sitchen's sources and saw Kramer listed but this works too

Originally posted by apacheman
While laudable, and interesting, I seriously doubt the claims of "firsts" without a ton of caveats...There were lots of civs before Sumer in other parts of the world.

Not to mention those we're not really sure of but whose presence we get tantalizing glimpses of, such as the 8,000 year old ruins of submerged Indian cities,

It's like the "Greek" invention of democracy..true democracy was invented by the Iriquois...what the Greeks practiced wasn't quite it.

Of course these "firsts" can be outdone by an earlier civilization but I wouldn't doubt this scholar. Although, you are correct about many underwater civilizations. Who knows what's doin with that, but as of present time we got this

reply to post by CharterZZ


The information provided by Kramer and others are translations from the
hundreds of thousands of clay tablets that have survived to this day.
Long after the cities have turned to dust.

reply to post by Swills


S&F
congratulations on stumbling on SNK
it is said that there are only 7 sumerologist in existence at a time [ i could be wrong about the number thou]

and SNK is definitely one of those "able to read the ancient tablets of the Shumerians" [thats the correct pronunciation by the way] to paraphrase Ashurbanipal .

gonna enjoy your post now.

edit to add:

you forgot the father and son one a universal if anything


father- where were you?

son- nowhere.

father -what were you doing?

son- nothing.

ok...but who were the parents of the Sumers?...Did they just appear one day?

reply to post by Swills

The Sumarians arose after the flood and had knowledge of pre-flood technologies.

There was a post-Babal five way split...

1. Phoenicea aka Sumeria or Canaan
2. Mizraim - Egypt XI Dynasty
3. Chaldea - Ur was the capital and Abraham came from here.
4. Greece (Attica, Arcadia, Sparta)
5. China - 1st Hiah Dynasty.

All five civilizations arose about the same time.

Do you think the sumerarians had help?
I mean just a couple of those thing is incredible to come from just one society

reply to post by mb2591


Naw...they were real smart

39 is the number of freemason masters that control this world.

I feel they could teach us a thing or two...

Code of Hammurabi

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Code of Hammurabi Legal System
King Hammurabi is remembered for his 'Code' or collection of laws. It was modelled on existing laws, but this was the largest law code assembled. The Code has 282 provisions which dealt with many aspects of life, including family rights, trade, slavery, tariffs, taxes, prices and wages. The Code tells us much about Babylonian society.

The Code of Hammurabi is inscribed on a stone slab over 2 metres (6ft) high. At the top, the King is shown receiving laws from the Babylonian sun god, Shamash. The laws are not the same for rich and poor, but the weak were given some protection against the tyranny of the strong. The Code was not the only law code in Mesopotamia, but the only one written in stone.

Also, as mentioned already there were possibly other culture/civilizations which maybe had developed these firsts as well but they were the ones who wrote it all down and kept great records which have luckily survived to present day. They also had one of the first city/urban plans with grid like street layouts and sewage drainage and some even had indoor plumbing.

Not bad for a "Cradle civilization" which brings us back to the pre-culture and the build up phase for such developments/firsts.

Interesting tibit about the "FLOOD STORY" maybe we need to connect the dots a bit here...
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Lost civilization may have been beneath Persian Gulf

At its peak, the floodplain now below the Gulf would have been about the size of Great Britain, and then shrank as water began to flood the area. Then, about 8,000 years ago, the land would have been swallowed up by the Indian Ocean

Watery refuge
The Gulf Oasis would have been a shallow inland basin exposed from about 75,000 years ago until 8,000 years ago, forming the southern tip of the Fertile Crescent, according to historical sea-level records.

"Perhaps it is no coincidence that the founding of such remarkably well developed communities along the shoreline corresponds with the flooding of the Persian Gulf basin around 8,000 years ago," Rose said. "These new colonists may have come from the heart of the Gulf, displaced by rising water levels that plunged the once fertile landscape beneath the waters of the Indian Ocean."

edit on 25-6-2011 by SLAYER69 because: (no reason given)

Kramer was the first assyriologist to decipher sumerian cuneiform. And the surrounding cultures most definitely do not suggest the sumerian history does not contain ancient astronaut data. It only suggests that if you refuse to acknowledge their connections to each other, and the cross culture etymology of their words. (not that i'm suggesting the ancient astronaut approach is the entire answer to the questions raised by the texts).

Originally posted by SLAYER69
Interesting tibit about the "FLOOD STORY" maybe we need to connect the dots a bit here...
Lost civilization may have been beneath Persian Gulf

At its peak, the floodplain now below the Gulf would have been about the size of Great Britain, and then shrank as water began to flood the area. Then, about 8,000 years ago, the land would have been swallowed up by the Indian Ocean

Actually, the archeological evidence points to it being a great flood on the Euphrates/Tigris river and the original ORIGINAL text doesn't talk about the whole world being flooded but rather one that wiped out a large area. The survivors come to land and go into a town where they have to rebuild their lives in a new area.

Originally posted by troubleshooter
reply to post by Swills

 

The Sumarians arose after the flood and had knowledge of pre-flood technologies.

There was a post-Babal five way split...

1. Phoenicea aka Sumeria or Canaan
2. Mizraim - Egypt XI Dynasty
3. Chaldea - Ur was the capital and Abraham came from here.
4. Greece (Attica, Arcadia, Sparta)
5. China - 1st Hiah Dynasty.

All five civilizations arose about the same time.

sumer was actually pre-flood. dunno where you got the idea they were post flood, since even the sumerian kings list gives older dates than the flood.