Babylonians and Sumerians contributed with some of the most important discoveries and achievements. Not only did Sumerians have a complicated law system (including juries), medicine (including invasive procedures), ships and navigation, but more remarkably, an amazingly advanced knowledge of astronomy. Astronomy began with the first settlements of agricultural societies. Mesopotamia, the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in what is today Iraq, was the birthplace of civilization almost 10,000 years ago. It is in ancient Sumeria that we find the oldest records of the study of astronomy. Babylon and Assyria were later civilizations in the same geographic area, and inherited the Sumerians' astronomical traditions and many of their myths and legends surrounding the skies. Kingdoms of Sumeria.