Orient Middle East or the Far East. The term Oriental is often used to describe objects from the Orient. However, given its Eurocentric connotations and shifting, inaccurate definition through the ages, it is generally considered offensive as a label for people from Asia. The term "Orient" derives from the Latin word "oriens" meaning "east" (lit. "rising" < "orior" " rise"). The use of the word for "rising" to refer to the east (where the sun rises) has analogs from many languages: compare the terms "Levant" (< French "levant" "rising"), "Vostok" (< Russian "voskhod" "sunrise"), "Anatolia" (< Greek "anatole"), "mizrahi" in Hebrew
Transjordan (region) and Eber-Nari. The Decapolis is named from its ten cities enumerated by Pliny the Elder. It should be noted, that what Pliny calls "Decapolis", Ptolemy calls "Cœle-Syria". Ptolemy does not use the term "Transjordan", but rather the periphrasis "across the Jordan". And he enumerates the cities; Cosmas, Libias, Callirhoe, Gazorus, Epicaeros—as being in this district—east of the Jordan, that Josephus et al. called Perea. Jerash was a prominent central community for the surrounding region during the Neolithic period and was also inhabited during the Bronze Age. Ancient Greek inscriptions from the city, and the literary works of Iamblichus and the