‘From the first written account until the fall of Roman empire’- from Susan Bauer really drove this point home for me. Probably mainly because it made me think about it (like you just did) for the first time. It also make those first few written accounts (kinglist, Gilgamesh) much more special for me.

Even though it’s ‘only’ 4k years old, which less then the blink of an eye on the galactic scale, the amount of effort and capital and determination it requires to still have access to those… Almost mythical. Really amazing.