Around 3000 B.C.E, people in Mesopotamia and Egypt began to develop cities and wrestle with the problems of organized states. They developed writing to keep records and created literature. They developed new political, military, social, and religious structures to deal with the basic problems of human existence and organization.
These first literate civilizations left detailed records that allow us to view how they grappled with three of the fundamental problems that humans have pondered:
1. the nature of human relationships,
2. the nature of the universe, and
3. the role of divine forces in our destiny and daily acts.