The Terracotta Army, found in 1974 by farmers digging a well, only guards the surroundings. The burial mound of Qin Shi Huang, who died in 210 BCE, has never been opened by archaeologists. The historian Sima Qian, writing about a century later, described rivers of mercury recreated inside the tomb, and soil surveys have indeed found abnormally high mercury levels in the mound. Unable to guarantee the preservation of what lies within, China has so far chosen not to dig.
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.