ancient sources
Old primary documents
Ancient sources are texts, artifacts, or records from antiquity—typically Greek, Roman, or other early civilizations—that provide evidence about the past.
Scholars cite ancient sources when discussing historical events, philosophical ideas, or cultural practices: According to ancient sources, the library of Alexandria held hundreds of thousands of scrolls.
The phrase implies primary documentation from the period being studied, as opposed to later interpretations.
- scrollsRolled written records
- potteryFired clay objects
- paintingsPictures made with pigment
- mythsTraditional untrue narratives
- papyriAncient Egyptian writing material
manuscripts · coins · stone inscriptions · carvings · legends · tablets · annals · oral tradition · epics · sagas · ice cores · tree rings · sediment layers · codices · clay tablets · ballads · chants · epigraphs
- Julius Caesar criticismGallic Wars, rhetoric, historiography, self-promotion, literary devices
- ancient historiansHerodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Plutarch, Tacitus
ancient sourcesacademic analysis
Formal examination of ideas
historiography · critical commentary · meta-analysis · meta-analyses · literature reviews
ancient, anciently, ancientness, source, sources, sourced, sourcing