The human race existed for many millennia before producing works of art. We do not know how or when art began; but since their appearance, the arts have provided us with visual records of cultures, of history, and of the human creative impulse. Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) artists carved small-scale sculptures and painted life-size images on cave walls. In Neolithic (New Stone Age) periods, when settled communities formed, monumental stone architecture began.
The rise of cities and the invention of writing (c. 3000 B.C.) in ancient Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) ushered in a period of enormous artistic creativity, including the first literary epic—the Epic of Gilgamesh. Ancient Egypt was home to one of the world's longest-lasting civilizations, ruled from about 3100 B.C. to 31 B.C. by dynasties of pharaohs. Their monumental royal art has been preserved by elaborate burials and a dry climate. North of Egypt, Cycladic artists created marble idols dating from the Bronze Age (c. 3000–1100 B.C.). On the Mediterranean island of Crete, the palace period of the seafaring Minoans flourished from about 2000 B.C. but declined when the island was invaded around 1400 B.C. by Mycenaeans from the Greek mainland. The warrior culture of Mycenae is immortalized not only in its impressive art and architecture, but also in the Homeric epics that recount the Trojan War (c. 1180 B.C.) and its aftermath—the Iliad and Odyssey—and in the dramatic works of later Greek playwrights.