For ancient travelers, pharaonic Egypt was already a distant past. In the Valley of the Kings, the tomb of Ramesses VI bears nearly a thousand Greek and Latin graffiti left by visitors. Emperor Hadrian himself came to hear the 'Colossi of Memnon', said to sing at dawn. Mass tourism is nothing new.
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.