The phrase "ancient compilation" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used to refer to a collection of texts, documents, or artifacts that are from a distant past or historical period.
Example: "The ancient compilation of myths and legends provides valuable insights into the culture of early civilizations."
Alternatives: "historical collection" or "old compilation".
New papal laws and decisions, called decretals, first added to Gratian's Decretum, were soon gathered into separate collections, of which the best known are the Quinque compilationes antiquae ("Five Ancient Compilations").
Cavafy had a model for sexual frankness in the Greek Anthology, that remarkable compilation of ancient insults, boasts, epigrams, and erotica, much of it recovered from mummy wrappings and pottery shards.
Photios is famous mainly for his Bibliotheke, a vast compilation of ancient Greek literature, and a Lexicon, in which he collected notable words and expressions.
Compilation... compilers?
After the publication of Thomas Percy's ballad compilation Reliques of Ancient English Poetry in 1765, ballad imitation enjoyed a considerable vogue, which properly belongs in the history of poetry rather than balladry.
It is a compilation of modern and ancient ideas, admixed with a great many horrendous European ideas.
Hundreds of medicinal plants were known in India before the Christian era, and the Chinese have a compilation, still authoritative, of 1,892 ancient herbal remedies.
Negative numbers are used in the Bakhshali manuscript of ancient India, but its exact date of compilation is unknown.
In addition, his work played a major role in establishing the primacy of the Babylonian Talmud, as edited and revised by three generations of ancient sages, over the Palestinian Talmud, the final compilation of which had been interrupted by external pressures.
The study of the interactions of plants with the human body by many generations of ancient doctors through the ages had enabled a compilation of a database of medicinal herbs with details on their effects on the human body.
