In the 14th century, the traveler Ibn Battuta described Taghaza, deep in the Sahara: its houses and mosque were built from blocks of salt, roofed with camel skins. The salt mined there went south by caravan to the Mali Empire, where it was traded, among other things, for gold. Salt was treasure in the heart of the desert.
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.