It is beyond my comprehension why the greatest civilizations of antiquity - Sumer, Akkad, Babylon, Assyria, and even the Achaemenid Persian empire are neither taught in (Western) schools nor are they included in major contemporary literature and the myriad cinematographically productions…
Unfortunately, Western Civilization pays attention only to its direct progenitors of the Greco-Roman world, which indeed bear its main (unmediated) cultural roots, whilst completely disregarding the very source of the latter’s origin, which is doubtlessly based on Assyrian, Babylonian, and, particularly, their ultimate birthplace in Sumer and Akkad.
There is no question that our beloved Western civilization emerged in the floodplain at the lower reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers circa 4000 BCE, specifically, at the narrow coast of today’s Iraq and Kuwait.
While, as a citizen of the Western world, I share the European disdain about the current (intolerant Islamic) cultures inhabiting that primordial region, we should never (ever) overlook the countless contributions made by our ultimate ancestors of Sumer and Akkad, who invented and implemented the wheel, irrigation, the plow, city living, hierarchical society, the fundamental writing system, astronomy, and the basic components of the modern Judeo-Christian mythical creeds (all of which significant for their foundational role in the development of civilization itself).
