In the 1990s, archaeologists uncovered the pyramid builders' town at the foot of the Giza plateau: bakeries, cattle and sheep bones and, above all, the workers' own tombs, set close to the royal monuments. That is an honor no slave would have received. The work was done by rotating crews of Egyptians, some serving a labor duty owed to the pharaoh, fed on bread, beer and meat. The image of slaves under the whip owes a lot to Hollywood.
Around 2300 BCE, Enheduanna, daughter of King Sargon of Akkad, became high priestess of the Moon god at Ur. She composed hymns to the goddess Inanna and put her name to them. She is the oldest person identified as the author of a literary work, about 1,500 years before Homer.
Squeeze Earth's 4.5 billion years into a single 24-hour day. Homo sapiens shows up around 11:59:54 p.m., roughly six seconds before midnight. All of written history, from Sumerian tablets to today, fits into the final tenth of a second. A cosmic blink.