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conquested by Macedonian king Alexander the Great and united with the antique
Hellenistic world.
For a long period of its existence the Egyptian culture had a significant
impact on the development of the culture of a number of nations and peoples.

3. Culture of state formations in Mesopotamia
Ancient Mesopotamia (between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, located to

the east of Egypt) played an important role in the history of the world culture.
Here, since the beginning of the IVth century BC there was formed another Middle
Eastern center of ancient civilizations represented by such cultural and political

formations as Sumer, Akkad, Babylon, the Assyrian empire and Babylonian state.
Unlike a monotonous cyclic model of existence of the Egyptian culture
Mesopotamia as a cultural, historical and natural geographic region experienced an

intense and dynamic life. The unexpected floods because of the unmanageable
rivers of the Tigris and Euphrates, hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts of the Arab
Syrian desert and steppes, endless wars, invasions of numerous tribes, forced
relocation of entire nations contributed to an extremely complex and colorful

mosaic of the cultural development of Mesopotamia.
The Sumerian and Akkadian (names of the two parts of the territory in the

south and north) culture is one of the ancient cultures of Mesopotamia. The
southeastern tribe of the Sumerians stimulated a rapid rise of the settlements of the
Ubaid culture (after the name of the archaeological monuments near the village of
El Ubaid). This is how the ancient cities-states Eridu, Ur, Kish, Uruk, Shuruppak

emerged.
Numerous historical sources indicate high achievements of the Sumerians.
Their language remains unque despite the efforts of linguists to find the analogy in

various fields of culture: architecture, astronomy, mathematics. These are the
Sumerians who invented the wheel and built the world's first stepped pyramid.
They are the authors of the ancient calendar systems (solar, lunar), library directory

etc. The Sumerians developed a cuneiform system of writing which was easily
adjusted to the needs of different languages and became universal. Their alphabet
was the basis of the cuneiform Phoenician and later Greek alphabetic system. In

Sumer there appeared the earliest piece of real literature – epic poem ‘The Epic of
Gilgamesh’ (‘one who knew everything’). The hero of the poem is a two-third god
and one-third man who defeats dangerous enemies. Gilgamesh is also courageous,
fearless before the great gods, knows the meaning and joy of life. For the first time

in the literature he experiences the bitterness of a loss and rigor of death. In this
epos there is the oldest description of the Great Flood that became the dominant
element of the biblical eschatology.

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