The book by orientalist-Sumerologist V.V. Emelyanov tells in detail and fascinatingly about one of the most ancient civilizations in human history - Ancient Sumer. Unlike previous monographs devoted to this issue, here the components of Sumerian culture - civilization, artistic culture and ethnic character - are presented in unity for the first time. The first part covers the material culture, social structure and political history of the Sumerian city-states, as well as the peculiarities of the worldview Sumerians. The second part introduces the reader to the Sumerian contributions to art, science and literature. The history of Sumerian literature is based here on a new chronothematic classification of its works. The third part of the book is devoted to the issue of determining the national character of historically dead peoples using new psychological methods of classification. The appendix presents translations of texts from all eras of Sumerian history, with most of the texts being translated into Russian for the first time.