Bizzare Facts

Our brains often organize historical figures into vague, single 'Ancient' buckets—a mental filing error that makes us assume Cleopatra, the Sphinx, and the Pharaohs all existed within a relatively tight chronological window. The reality, however, is a mind-bending stretch of time. The **Great Pyramid of Giza** was completed around **2560 BCE**, standing as a monument to the Old Kingdom before the term 'ancient' even applied to it.

Fast forward over twenty-five centuries, past the collapse of the Old Kingdom, past the rise of the Roman Republic, and past the Hellenistic period, to find **Cleopatra VII** dying in **30 BCE**. She was the last active ruler of the Ptolemaic Kingdom, meaning the pyramids were already monuments of profound antiquity to *her* people. The time separating Cleopatra from the Pharaohs who built those iconic structures is significantly longer than the time separating her from the launch of the **iPhone** in **2007 CE**—a mere 2,037 years later.

This stunning chronological compression forces us to recalibrate our entire perspective on human history. The gap between the Great Pyramid and Cleopatra is a vast, world-shifting abyss of history, making the period from the Egyptian Queen to modern smartphone technology feel like a comparative blink of the eye. It's a humbling reminder that the deep past is far deeper than we usually imagine.