Caption: " A modern statue of Gilgamesh (cuddling a lion), University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia." (Slightly edited.)

Gilgamesh (c.26th century BCE) is probably a historical person as well as the legendary hero of the Epic of Gilgamesh:

... coming into his own city Uruk,
he found no memory of his time,
just an old man who seemed to say it was all long ago,
and his eyes rested on that city he had built, its towering height,
and in that moment---and in that moment only---there was no past.

---yours truly's own free variation.