Instruct: Given a question, retrieve passages that can help answer the question.
Query: What's the meaning of BCE
Common Era or Current Era (CE)[1] is one of the notation systems for the world's most widely used calendar era. BCE (Before the Common Era/Before the Current Era) is the era before CE. BCE and CE are alternatives to the Dionysian AD and BC system. The Dionysian era distinguishes eras using AD (anno Domini, "[the] year of [the] Lord")[2] and BC ("before Christ"). Since the two notation systems are numerically equivalent, "2019 CE" corresponds to "AD 2019" and "400 BCE" corresponds to "400 BC".[2][3][4][lower-alpha 1] Both notations refer to the Gregorian calendar (and its predecessor, the Julian calendar). The year-numbering system utilized by the Gregorian calendar is used throughout the world today, and is an international standard for civil calendars.[5]
To the south, Emperor Wu assisted King Zhao Mo in fending off an attack by Minyue (in modern Fujian) in 135 BCE. After a pro-Han faction was overthrown at the court of Nanyue, Han naval forces conquered Nanyue in 111 BCE during the Han–Nanyue War, bringing areas of modern Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan Island, and northern Vietnam under Han control. Emperor Wu also launched an invasion into the Dian Kingdom of Yunnan in 109 BCE, subjugating its king as a tributary vassal, while later Dian rebellions in 86 BCE and 83 BCE, 14 CE (during Wang Mang's rule), and 42–45 CE were quelled by Han forces. Wu sent an expedition into what is now North Korea in 128 BCE, but this was abandoned two years later. In 108 BCE, another expedition established four commanderies there, only two of which (i.e. Xuantu Commandery and Lelang Commandery) remained after 82 BCE. Although there was some violent resistance in 108 BCE and irregular raids by Goguryeo and Buyeo afterwards, Chinese settlers conducted peaceful trade relations with native Koreans who lived largely independent of (but were culturally influenced by) the sparse Han settlements.
This timeframe is taken in conjunction with another date in the Seleucid Era counting mentioned by Josephus, in his "Antiquities of the Jews" (book 12, chapter 9, section 2). Based on Josephus' record, Antiochus Eupator began his reign after his father's death (Antiochus Epiphanes) in "anno" 149 of the Seleucid Era (= 162 BCE). Twenty-three years into Antiochus Eupator's reign would have then been "anno" 172 of the Seleucid Era, or what was then 139 BCE. Since, according to the Scroll of Antiochus, the Second Temple had already been standing 213 years, this means that the Second Temple was completed in "anno" 352 BCE, being what was then the 6th year of the reign of Darius the king (i.e. Darius, the son of Hystaspes), the year in which the king finished its building according to Ezra 6:15. Although this date of the Temple's rebuilding largely disagrees with modern scholarship who base their chronologies upon the Babylonian Chronicles and its rebuilding in 516 BCE, it is, nonetheless, held by religious Jewish circles as being accurate and reliable, since it is founded upon a tradition passed down generation after generation. The Babylonian Chronicles, however, are known to be lacking in certain regnal years ascribed to some kings, besides disagreeing in other places with the ancient Egyptian records outlining the regnal years of eight successive Persian kings, preserved in the Third Book of Manetho. In Jewish tradition, the Second Temple stood 420 years, meaning, it was destroyed by Titus in the 2nd year of the reign of Vespasian, in 68 CE. For a discussion of subject, see Seder Olam Rabbah.
The first known habitation in the area was at what is now Bayraklı, several kilometers north of Izmir's city center. This site was home to the named city of Smyrna from the Iron Age to the late Archaic/early Classical period (likely in the late 4th Century BCE). The dating of the sites are based on sherds of pottery from the protogeometric and protocorinthian periods, respectively. The fortifications were heavily damaged or destroyed by a powerful earthquake around 700 BCE, and more built on top of the ruins. Around 600 BCE, the city was assaulted by King Attyes of Lydia and Wall 3 destroyed during the battle, and the city taken. Only a short time later, the Persian Empire struck and sacked the city in 545 BCE. It appears that the main city was moved into what is now Izmir during the Hellenistic period as the Bayraklı location was abandoned in the late 4th Century and the primary area of habitation moved south to what is now Izmir, under which the post-Archaic Smyrna now lies.
c. 45,000 BP / 43,000 BCE – Beginnings of Châtelperronian culture in France. c. 40,000 BP / 38,000 BCE – First human settlement in the southern half of the Australian mainland, by indigenous Australians (including the future sites of Sydney,[35][36] Perth,[37] and Melbourne.[38]) c. 32,000 BP / 30,000 BCE – Beginnings of Aurignacian culture, exemplified by the cave paintings ("parietal art") of Chauvet Cave in France. c. 30,500 BP / 28,500 BCE – New Guinea is populated by colonists from Asia or Australia.[39] c. 30,000 BP / 28,000 BCE – A herd of reindeer is slaughtered and butchered by humans in the Vezere Valley in what is today France.[40] c. 28,000–20,000 BP – Gravettian period in Europe. Harpoons, needles, and saws invented. c. 26,500 BP – Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Subsequently, the ice melts and the glaciers retreat again (Late Glacial Maximum). During this latter period human beings return to Western Europe (see Magdalenian culture) and enter North America from Eastern Siberia for the first time (see Paleo-Indians, pre-Clovis culture and Settlement of the Americas). c. 26,000 BP / 24,000 BCE – People around the world use fibers to make baby-carriers, clothes, bags, baskets, and nets. c. 25,000 BP / 23,000 BCE – A settlement consisting of huts built of rocks and mammoth bones is founded near what is now Dolní Věstonice in Moravia in the Czech Republic. This is the oldest human permanent settlement that has been found by archaeologists.[41] c. 23,000 BP / 21,000 BCE – Small-scale trial cultivation of plants in Ohalo II, a hunter-gatherers' sedentary camp on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, Israel.[42] c. 16,000 BP / 14,000 BCE – Wisent sculpted in clay deep inside the cave now known as Le Tuc d'Audoubert in the French Pyrenees near what is now the border of Spain.[43] c. 14,800 BP / 12,800 BCE – The Humid Period begins in North Africa. The region that would later become the Sahara is wet and fertile, and the Aquifers are full.[44]
A distinction from other ethnolinguistic groups (in Herodotus, "ethnos" means 'people') such as the Persians is evident primarily in foreign sources, such as from mid-9th century BCE Assyrian cuneiform sources and from Herodotus' mid-5th century BCE secondhand account of the Perso-Median conflict. It is not known what the native name of the Median language was (just like for all other Old Iranian languages) or whether the Medes themselves nominally distinguished it from the languages of other Iranian peoples.
This timeframe is taken in conjunction with another date in the Seleucid Era counting mentioned by Josephus, in his "Antiquities of the Jews" (book 12, chapter 9, section 2). Based on Josephus' record, Antiochus Eupator began his reign after his father's death (Antiochus Epiphanes) in "anno" 149 of the Seleucid Era (= 162 BCE). Twenty-three years into Antiochus Eupator's reign would have then been "anno" 172 of the Seleucid Era, or what was then 139 BCE. Since, according to the Scroll of Antiochus, the Second Temple had already been standing 213 years, this means that the Second Temple was completed in "anno" 352 BCE, being what was then the 6th year of the reign of Darius the king (i.e. Darius, the son of Hystaspes), the year in which the king finished its building according to Ezra 6:15. Although this date of the Temple's rebuilding largely disagrees with modern scholarship who base their chronologies upon the Babylonian Chronicles and its rebuilding in 516 BCE, it is, nonetheless, held by religious Jewish circles as being accurate and reliable, since it is founded upon a tradition passed down generation after generation. The Babylonian Chronicles, however, are known to be lacking in certain regnal years ascribed to some kings, besides disagreeing in other places with the ancient Egyptian records outlining the regnal years of eight successive Persian kings, preserved in the Third Book of Manetho. In Jewish tradition, the Second Temple stood 420 years, meaning, it was destroyed by Titus in the 2nd year of the reign of Vespasian, in 68 CE. For a discussion of subject, see Missing Years (Jewish Calendar) and Seder Olam Rabba.
Preceramic Period (3000 – 1800 BCE) (2500 – 1800 BCE is called the Cotton Preceramic Period or Preceramic Period VI). The Preceramic Period is characterized by the growth of the coastal settlements of Huaynuná, with a settlement dated as old as 2900 BCE, and Las Haldas where a settlement is dated back to 2200 BCE. Both Huaynuná and Las Haldas are located more than distant from the irrigable lands of the Casma River Valley and thus fishing was their principal means of subsistence.
King Dongmyeong of Goguryeo (58 BCE – 19 BCE, r. 37 BCE – 19 BCE) or Dongmyeongseongwang (), which literally means Holy King of the East, also known by his birth name Jumong (), was the founding monarch of the kingdom of Goguryeo, the northernmost of the Three Kingdoms of Korea. In the Gwanggaeto Stele, he is called Chumo-wang (King Chumo). In the "Samguk Sagi" and the "Samgungnyusa", he is recorded as Jumong with the surname Go (Hanja: 高). The "Samguk Sagi" states that he was also known as Chumo or Sanghae (). The name is also transcribed in other records as Chumong (), Jungmo ( or ), or Domo ().
The field of "Nirukta" deals with ascertaining the meaning of words, particularly of archaic words no longer in use, ones created long ago and even then rarely used. The Vedic literature from the 2nd millennium BCE has a very large collection of such words, with nearly 25% of the words therein being used just once. By the 1st millennium BCE, interpreting and understanding what the Vedas meant had become a challenge, and "Nirukta" attempted to systematically propose theories on how words form, and then determine their meaning in order to understand the Vedas.
The Neolithic Revolution, beginning around 10,000 BCE, saw the development of agriculture, which fundamentally changed the human lifestyle. Farming developed around 10,000 BCE in the Middle East, around 7000 BCE in what is now China, about 6000 BCE in the Indus Valley and Europe, and about 4000 BCE in the Americas.[29] Cultivation of cereal crops and the domestication of animals occurred around 8500 BCE in the Middle East, where wheat and barley were the first crops and sheep and goats were domesticated.[30] In the Indus Valley, crops were cultivated by 6000 BCE, along with domesticated cattle. The Yellow River valley in China cultivated millet and other cereal crops by about 7000 BCE, but the Yangtze River valley domesticated rice earlier, by at least 8000 BCE. In the Americas, sunflowers were cultivated by about 4000 BCE, and corn and beans were domesticated in Central America by 3500 BCE. Potatoes were first cultivated in the Andes Mountains of South America, where the llama was also domesticated.[29] Metal-working, starting with copper around 6000 BCE, was first used for tools and ornaments. Gold soon followed, with its main use being for ornaments. The need for metal ores stimulated trade, as many of the areas of early human settlement were lacking in ores. Bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, is first known from about 2500 BCE, but did not become widely used until much later.[31]
San Lorenzo was the first Olmec site that demonstrates state level complexity. The site dominated the gulf coast lowlands, creating Olmec cultural diffusion throughout the rest of Mesoamerica. The iconic finds at the site are the famous colossal heads. The colossal heads stand up to tall. According to archaeological finds, archaeologists have divided the Olmec history into four stages: Formation stage (1700–1300 BCE), Integration stage (1300–900 BCE) Expansion stage (900–300 BCE) and Disintegration stage (300 BCE – 200 CE). Another name archaeologists use is for categorizing the Olmecs is the Formative Period. Formative meaning, the pivotal years that laid the ground work for state level, complex societies. Formative Mesoamerica can be divided into three periods: Early Formative (1800–900 BCE), Middle Formative (900–400 BCE) and Late Formative (400 BCE – 200 AD). San Lorenzo was the largest city in Mesoamerica from roughly 1200 BCE to 900 BCE, at which time it had begun to be overtaken by the Olmec center of La Venta. By 800 BCE, there was little or no population, although there was an important recolonization of the San Lorenzo plateau from 600 to 400 BCE and again from circa 800 to 1000 CE.
The roots of Zoroastrianism are thought to have emerged from a common prehistoric Indo-Iranian religious system dating back to the early 2nd millennium BCE. The prophet Zoroaster himself, though traditionally dated to the 6th century BCE, is thought by many modern historians to have been a reformer of the polytheistic Iranian religion who lived in the 10th century BCE. Zoroastrianism as a religion was not firmly established until several centuries later. Zoroastrianism enters recorded history in the mid-5th century BCE. Herodotus' "The Histories" (completed c. 440 BCE) includes a description of Greater Iranian society with what may be recognizably Zoroastrian features, including exposure of the dead.
Considerable evidence indicates that about 60,000 years ago, humans inhabited what has since become the desolate Sahara Desert of northern Niger. Later, on what was then huge fertile grasslands, from at least 7,000 BCE there was pastoralism, herding of sheep and goats, large settlements and pottery. Cattle were introduced to the Central Sahara (Ahaggar) from 4,000 to 3,500 BCE. Remarkable rock paintings, many found in the Aïr Mountains, dated 3,500 to 2,500 BCE, portray vegetation and animal presence rather different from modern expectations.[2]
Shamshi-Adad I inherited the throne in Terqa c. 1833 BCE. He was forced to flee to Babylon c. 1823 BCE. He remained in exile until c. 1815 BCE. He first conquered Ekallatum, and then Assur after overthrowing King Erishum II ("fl." "c." 1815 BCE — "c." 1808 BCE.) Shamshi-Adad I took over the long-abandoned town of Shekhna (today known as Tell Leilan), converted it into the capital city of the Old Assyrian Empire, and then renamed it "Shubat-Enlil" (Akkadian) meaning:
The city was destroyed by Alexander the Great in 331 BCE, and was destroyed again by John Hyrcanus in 108 BCE. Pompey rebuilt the town in the year 63 BCE. In 27 BCE, Augustus Caesar gave it to Herod the Great. Herod expanded and renovated the city, bringing in six-thousand new inhabitants, and named it "Sebaste", meaning "Augustus", in the Emperor's honor. Herod the Great had his sons Alexander and Aristobulus brought to Sebaste, and strangled in 7 BCE after a trial in Berytus and with the approbation of Caesar.
The  (or "Shulva-sutras") deal with the mathematical methodology to construct altar geometries for the Vedic rituals. The Sanskrit word "Shulba" means cord, and these texts are "rules of the cord". They provide, states Kim Plofker, what in modern mathematical terminology would be called "area preserving transformations of plane figures", tersely describing geometric formulae and constants. Five "Shulba Sutras" texts have survived through history, of which the oldest surviving is likely the Baudhayana Shulba Sutra (800-500 BCE), while the one by Katyayana may be chronologically the youngest (~300 BCE).
The Ziggurat (or Great Ziggurat) of Ur (Sumerian: "Etemenniguru", meaning "temple whose foundation creates aura") is a Neo-Sumerian ziggurat in what was the city of Ur near Nasiriyah, in present-day Dhi Qar Province, Iraq. The structure was built during the Early Bronze Age (21st century BCE) but had crumbled to ruins by the 6th century BCE of the Neo-Babylonian period, when it was restored by King Nabonidus.
Wang Bao ( 84 53 BCE), courtesy name Ziyuan (子淵), was a lyricist, writer, and a poet of the Classical Chinese poetry tradition, who was involved in the "Chu Ci" poetry revival which took place in the second part of Emperor Xuan's reign, and which led to development of parts of what would eventually be the final form of the early poetry anthology by the same name, compiled by Wang Yi: "Chu Ci" means "literature of Chu", Chu being the area of a former independent kingdom, located in what was from the viewpoint of the Han Dynasty the south of China. Wang Bao is particularly known today as the author of the "Chu Ci" section "Nine Regrets". Although not as famous as ""Li Sao"" or "Heavenly Questions", and despite (as have all the "Chu Ci" contents) having sometimes having had Qu Yuan credited as author, having his works included in one of the two major early anthologies of Chinese poetry helped to secure Wang Bao's legacy as poet and author. Wang Bao became famous during the reign of Han Dynasty emperor Emperor Xuan (r. 74 BCE – 49 BCE), and he attended the emperor and the prince, his presumptive heir.
One discovery suggests what is now the Sahara of northeast Niger was home to a succession of Holocene era societies. One Saharan site illustrated how sedentary hunter-fisher-gatherers lived at the edge of shallow lakes around 7700–6200 BCE, but disappeared during a period of extreme drought that may have lasted for a millennium over 6200–5200 BCE. Several former northern villages and archaeological sites date from the Green Sahara period of 7500-7000 to 3500-3000 BCE.[3] When the climate returned to savanna grasslands—wetter than today's climate—and lakes reappeared in what is the modern Ténére desert, a population practicing hunting, fishing, and cattle husbandry. This last population survived until almost historical times, from 5200–2500 BCE, when the current arid period began.[4]
The (139 BCE) "Huainanzi" uses "wangliang" 魍魎 meaning "mindless; zombielike" and "wangxiang" 罔象 meaning "a water monster". The former occurs in a description of people's mentality during the mythological golden age of Fuxi and Nüwa. 
Their motions were calm and unhurried; their gaze was tranquil and uncurious. In their ignorance, they all got what they needed to know. Aimlessly drifting, they did not know what they were looking for; zombielike, they did not know where they were going. (tr. Major 2010: 225)
Major (fn. 69) explains that "wangliang" was "a kind of corpse monster, said to feed on the brains of the buried dead." The latter occurs in context with Fenyang "a sheep-like earth deity" (cf. "Guoyu" above) and two mythical birds.
The Chinese classics provide a means of tracing the semantic developments of "xiao" from "wail", to "call back", to "whistle". The earliest usages in the Western Zhou dynasty (1046–771 BCE) "Shijing" "Classic of Poetry" described the sound of women expressing high emotion or grief. The Warring States period (c. 475 – 221 BCE) "Chuci" "Songs of the South" used "xiao" and "changxiao" to mean a piercing whistle or call to summon back the spirit or a recently deceased person. The (1st century BCE) "Liexian Zhuan" "Collected Biographies of Transcendents" first associated transcendental whistling with Daoism, as represented by the Madman of Chu who mocked Confucius.
There is an alternative explanation used to rectify what appears to be a discrepancy in the two biblical sources, taken from Adam Clarke's 1837 Bible commentary. The Assyrian siege had lasted until after planting time in the fall of 701 BCE, and although the Assyrians left immediately after the prophecy was given (2 Kings 19:35), they had consumed the harvest of that year before they left, leaving only the "saphiah" to be gleaned from the fields. In the next year, the people were to eat "what springs from that", Hebrew "sahish" (סחיש). Since this word occurs only here and in the parallel passage in Isaiah 37:30, where it is spelled שחיס, there is some uncertainty about its exact meaning. If it is the same as the "shabbat ha-arets" (שבת הארץ) that was permitted to be eaten in a Sabbath year in Leviticus 25:6, then there is a ready explanation why there was no harvest: the second year, i.e. the year starting in the fall of 700 BCE, was a Sabbath year, after which normal sowing and reaping resumed in the third year, as stated in the text.
In Hinduism, the term "Yoga" commonly refers to the eight limbs of yoga as defined in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, written some time after 100 BCE, and means "yoke", with the idea that one's individual atman, or soul, would yoke or bind with the monistic entity that underlies everything (brahman). Yoga in Hinduism also known as being 'complex', based on yoking (integrating). Yoga defines a specific process: it has an emphasis on knowledge and practice, as well as being known to be 'mature' and difficult. The most basic meaning of this Sanskrit term is with technique. The technique of the different forms of yoga is what makes the practice meaningful. Yoga is not an easy or simple practice, viyoga is what is described as simple. Yoga is difficult in the fact of displaying the faith and meaning of Hinduism. Many Hindus tend to pick and choose between the five forms of yoga because of the way they live their life and how they want to practice it in the form they are most connected to.
Cowry shells was first used in India as commodity money. The Indus Valley Civilization dates back between 2500 BCE and 1750 BCE. What is known, however, is that metal currency was minted in India well before the Mauryan Empire (322–185 BCE), and as radio carbon dating indicates, before the 5th century BCE.