In the end, Sumer was invaded by the Elamites who came from modern-day Iran. Narrator: Hello, future people of the UK. Would you like to visit me at the dawn of civilisation in ancient Sumer?

A student from ancient Sumer (modern-day Iraq) got the answer wrong on their 4,000-year-old geometry homework at a time when the world shifted from oral to written dissemination of knowledge.

First developed in Sumer, an ancient Mesopotamian city, cuneiform was eventually adopted by others, like the Akkadians and Babylonians for their own languages. UChicago scholars have worked to ...