Along the Nile in present-day Sudan, the rulers of the Kingdom of Kush built more than 200 pyramids, at El-Kurru, Nuri and above all Meroë: more than Egypt, which has just over a hundred. Smaller and steeper than those at Giza, they were built between the 8th century BCE and the 4th century CE. Kushite kings even ruled all of Egypt, as its 25th Dynasty.
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.