The ancient Near East refers to early civilizations in a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia (modern Iraq and Syria), Persia (modern Iran), Anatolia (modern Turkey), the Levant (modern Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, and Jordan), and Ancient Egypt, from the beginnings of Sumer in the 6th millennium BC until the region's conquest by Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC.The ancient Near East is considered the cradle of civilization. It was the first to practice intensive year-round agriculture; it produced the first writing system, invented the potter's wheel and then the vehicular- and mill wheels, created the first centralized governments, law codes and empires, as well as introducing social stratification, slavery and organized warfare, and it laid the foundation for the fields of mathematics, medicine and astronomy.
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