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Origins

The term ethnography is from Greek (ἔθνος éthnos "folk, people, nation" and γράφω gráphō "I write") and encompasses the ways in which ancient authors described and analyzed foreign cultures. Anthony Kaldellis loosely suggests the Odyssey as a starting point for ancient ethnography, while noting that Herodotus ' Histories is the usual starting point; while Edith Hall has argued that Homeric poetry lacks "the coherence and vigour of ethnological science". From Herodotus forward, ethnography was a mainstay of ancient historiography.

Tacitus has ethnographies in the Agricola, Histories, and Germania. Tacitus' Germania "stands as the sole surviving full-scale monograph by a classical author on an alien people." Ethnography formed a relatively coherent subgenre in Byzantine literature.