Around 77 CE, Pliny the Elder lamented that India, China and Arabia drained 100 million sesterces a year from the Empire for luxuries like silk, pearls and spices. Archaeologists have indeed found many hoards of Roman coins in southern India. Gold flowing to Asia was already worrying moralists.
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.