High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The ancient Near East was the home of early civilizations within a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia (modern Iraq and northeastern Syria), ancient Egypt, ancient Iran (Elam, Media, Parthia and Persia, Anatolia (modern Turkey) and the Levant (modern Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan). The ancient Near East is studied in the fields of Near Eastern archaeology and ancient history. It begins with the rise of Sumer in the 4th millennium BC, though the date it ends varies: either covering the Bronze Age and the Iron Age in the region, until the conquest by the Achaemenid Empire in the 6th century BC or Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC.