The Timeline Glitch

Why your brain flattens history.

2025-12-05

Our brains are terrible at processing “deep time.” As we look backward, we instinctively compress distinct eras into a single, muddy blur.

We categorize everything before year zero as “Ancient,” failing to register the massive voids in between.

“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” — L.P. Hartley

The most violent example of this distortion involves Egypt.

The Glitch

You likely picture Cleopatra standing in front of the Pyramids while they were being built. It fits the aesthetic. It feels correct.

The reality destroys that perception.

Cleopatra VII died in 30 BC. The Great Pyramid of Giza was completed around 2560 BC. The first McDonald’s opened in 1940.

The Math

1. Pyramids to Cleopatra: ~2,530 years.
2. Cleopatra to McDonald’s: ~1,970 years.

Cleopatra was chronologically closer to ordering a Big Mac than to seeing the Great Pyramid being built.

The Perspective

To her, the Pyramids weren’t contemporary marvels. They were already ancient ruins, older to her than the Roman Colosseum is to us today.

We flatten history to make it fit in our heads. Don’t trust your intuition on time.