History can mistake the survival of an object for the importance of its owner.

What survives is not what mattered, it is what was durable, stored well, and never needed. Stone outlasts cloth, the rich have attics, the poor have none, and so the record over-represents whoever had the space to keep things. History then reads importance backwards out of survival, which is a reasonable method with a systematic bias built in.

When you look at what remains from a period, ask what was made of materials that do not last. Assume the missing were numerous rather than unimportant. The same caution applies to any record of anything, including the one you keep about your own life.