The term apocrypha is used with various meanings, including " hidden ", " esoteric ", " spurious ", " of questionable authenticity ", ancient Chinese " revealed texts and objects " and " Christian texts that are not canonical ".

The ancient Chinese called the substance " dragon's spittle fragrance ".

Examples of early botanical works have been found in ancient sacred texts from India, ancient Zoroastrian writings, and ancient Chinese works.

According to ancient Chinese, Indian and Javanese manuscripts, western coastal cities of Borneo had become trading ports, part of their trade routes, since the first millennium.

The 28 lunar mansions are one of the most important and also the most ancient structures in the Chinese sky, attested from the 5th century BC.

Parallels to the earliest Babylonian ( Sumerian ) star catalogues suggest that the ancient Chinese system did not arise independently from that of the Ancient Near East.

The findings at Anyang include the earliest written record of Chinese past so far discovered: inscriptions of divination records in ancient Chinese writing on the bones or shells of animals – the so-called " oracle bones ", dating from around 1200 BC.

Although much of Chinese philosophy begins in the Warring States period, elements of Chinese philosophy have existed for several thousand years ; some can be found in the Yi Jing ( the Book of Changes ), an ancient compendium of divination, which dates back to at least 672 BCE.

Although the People's Republic of China has been historically hostile to the philosophy of ancient China, the influences of past are still deeply ingrained in the Chinese culture.

Yin and yang are ancient Chinese concepts which can be traced back to the Shang dynasty ( 1600 – 1100 BC ).

Yin, Yang, and the five elements are associated with themes in the I Ching, the oldest of Chinese classical texts which describes an ancient system of cosmology and philosophy.

Nevertheless, the ancient Chinese concept of Qi or chi is believed to be close to that of air.

Water is one of the elements in ancient Greek philosophy, in the Asian Indian system Panchamahabhuta, and in the Chinese cosmological and physiological system Wu Xing.

The Wu Xing, ( 五行 wŭ xíng ) also known as the Five Phases, the Five Agents, the Five Movements, and the Five Steps / Stages, are chiefly an ancient mnemonic device, in many traditional Chinese fields.

In 307 BC, King Wuling of Zhao, the ancient Chinese ruler of the former State of Jin territory, ordered his military commanders and troops to adopt the trousers of the nomads as well as practice the nomads ' form of mounted archery to hone their new cavalry skills.

The adoption of massed cavalry in China also broke the tradition of the chariot-riding Chinese aristocracy in battle, which had been in use since the ancient Shang Dynasty ( c. 1600 BC-1050 BC ).

According to Needham, though there is no way of answering the question of whether the crossbow first arose among the cultures neighboring ancient China before the rise of Chinese culture in their midst, or whether it spread outwards from China to all the environing peoples, the former seems the more probable hypothesis given linguistic evidence, which posits that the Chinese word for ' crossbow ' came from an Austroasiatic language.

Despite the limitations imposed on ancient Chinese concubines, history and literature have examples of concubines achieving great power and influence.

Zhan Guo Ce was a renowned ancient Chinese historical work and compilation of sporadic materials on the Warring States Period compiled between 3rd century to 1st century BCE.

He believed that the reform of the civil service into a meritocratic system and the disappearance of the ancient Chinese nobility from the bureaucracy constituted a modern society.

The country of the Aedui is defined by reports of them in the ancient writers.

When having legal status recognized, or defined in law, as in ancient China, concubinage was akin, although inferior, to marriage.

The term ethnologia ( ethnology ) is credited to Adam Franz Kollár ( 1718-1783 ) who used and defined it in his Historiae ivrisqve pvblici Regni Vngariae amoenitates published in Vienna in 1783. as: “ the science of nations and peoples, or, that study of learned men in which they inquire into the origins, languages, customs, and institutions of various nations, and finally into the fatherland and ancient seats, in order to be able better to judge the nations and peoples in their own times .”

The Greek language holds an important place in the histories of Europe, the more loosely defined Western world, and Christianity ; the canon of ancient Greek literature includes works of monumental importance and influence for the future Western canon, such as the epic poems Iliad and Odyssey.

In ancient Indian vedic society, the law or Dharma, as followed by Hindus was interpreted by use of " Manu Smrti "-a set of poems which defined sin and the remedies.

The " terramare " ( marl earth ) were ancient villages in structural wood on pile-dwelling built according to a defined scheme and squared form, built on the dry land, generally in proximity of the rivers.

In his poem, Works and Days, the ancient Greek poet Hesiod between 750 and 650 BC, defined five successive Ages of Man: 1.

In ancient Sanskrit drama, Bharata Muni's Natya Shastra defined humour ( hāsyam ) as one of the nine nava rasas, or principle rasas ( emotional responses ), which can be inspired in the audience by bhavas, the imitations of emotions that the actors perform.

According to the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Anahuac is " limited by the traditional and vaguely defined boundaries of an ancient Indian empire or confederation of that name previous to the Spanish conquest.

The Fertile Crescent at maximum defined extent, with the names of ancient civilizations found there.

In his great Dictionary ( 1755 ) Johnson defined a Tory as " one who adheres to the ancient Constitution of the state and the apostolical hierarchy of the Church of England, opposed to a Whig.

It is the fifth day of the week in the Judeo-Christian calendar as well, and was defined so in the ancient Mesopotamian and biblical calendars.

It is the fourth day of the week in the Judeo-Christian calendar as well, and was defined so in the ancient Mesopotamian and biblical calendars.

They are one of the chief sources of information on ancient and prehistoric cultures, and numerous archaeological cultures are defined by their burial customs, such as the

" Dag Øistein Endsjø, another scholar of religion, points out how a number of those often defined as dying-and-rising-deities, like Jesus and a number of figures in ancient Greek religion, actually died as ordinary mortals, only to become gods of various stature after they were resurrected from the dead.

The ancient authors themselves first defined style by recognizing different kinds of sermo, or " speech.

Belief in a Germanic spirit — defined as mystical, rural, moral, bearing ancient wisdom, and noble in the face of a tragic destiny — existed long before the rise of the Nazis ; the composer Richard Wagner celebrated such ideas in his work.

He has a number of similarities with later characters created by Lovecraft, in particular Joseph Curwen, the villain of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward: Both were improbably old, such that no one remembered when they were young ; possessed vaguely defined but powerful abilities oriented around storing the dead in peculiar objects and calling them forth to serve them ; and had access to ancient coinage of precious metals ( as do the Whateleys in The Dunwich Horror ).

The perimeters of the present City are roughly defined by the line of the ancient wall.

The Italian pavilion attempted to fuse ancient Roman splendor with modern styles, and a high water fall defined the pavilion's facade.

The Erectheum was associated with some of the most ancient and holy relics of the Athenians: the Palladion, which was a xoanon ( defined as a wooden effigy fallen from heaven-not man-made ) of Athena Polias ( Protectress of the City ); the marks of Poseidon's trident and the salt water well ( the " salt sea ") that resulted from Poseidon's strike ; the sacred olive tree that sprouted when Athena struck the rock with her spear in her successful rivalry with Poseidon for the city ; the supposed burial places of the mythical kings Cecrops and Erechtheus ; the sacred precincts of Cecrops ' three daughters, Herse, Pandrosus and Aglaurus ; and those of the tribal heroes Pandion and Boutes.

Richard B. Parkinson and Ludwig D. Morenz write that ancient Egyptian literature — narrowly defined as belles-lettres (" beautiful writing ")— were not recorded in written form until the early Twelfth dynasty of the Middle Kingdom.

In the ancient world, things did not exist until they were named: " The name of a living being or an object was ... the very essence of what was defined, and the pronouncing of a name was to create what was spoken.

In ancient Greece it was defined as one sixth of a drachma, or about 0. 5 gram.

In ancient Rome it was defined as 1 / 48 of a Roman ounce, or about 0. 57 gram, but was never issued as a coin as part of the early republican coinage system.