ancient

Ancient is an adjective used to describe things that belong to the very distant past. In historical and archaeological contexts, it denotes periods and cultures that predate the medieval era in many regions, or that are among the earliest known in a given area. The term is relative: what counts as ancient depends on the frame of reference. For example, in Western history, ancient civilizations typically refer to those of Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus Valley, and China from roughly 3500 BCE to the end of antiquity; in other contexts, ancient can extend to pre-Columbian civilizations in the Americas or to Bronze and Iron Age societies elsewhere.

Etymology: ancient derives from Old French ancien, from Latin antiquus meaning old or ancient. The nearby related terms antique and antiquity share the same root and emphasize long past origins.

In scholarly usage, ancient is often paired with other terms to specify the region or culture, such as ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, or ancient Rome. In archaeology and philology, researchers label finds as 'ancient' to indicate substantial age and to distinguish them from medieval or modern contexts. In linguistics, ancient languages are long extinct and studied through inscriptions and texts rather than living speech, with examples including Latin, Ancient Greek, Sanskrit, and Classical Chinese.

Beyond time, the word carries cultural and literary associations with venerable tradition and enduring influence, such as ancient law, ancient religion, or ancient literature. The term remains flexible and is commonly refined by qualifiers to convey precise historical meaning.