The story is brutally comic in parts, and never more so than at the moment when it is revealed that — despite the fact that Gregor has been living more or less as an indentured servant to pay off his parents' ancient debts — the family has plenty of money; not enough to allow them to stop working altogether, but a proper little nest egg.
Haiti was also weighted down with external (and ancient) debts that were nearly impossible to pay off before the hurricane, and out of the question afterwards.
The fear, expressed by Labour's shadow environment secretary, Mary Creagh, is that private companies will cherry-pick sites for commercial development and voluntary groups will be left to look after ancient woodlands in debt and without a budget.
However, in regions where forest fragmentation occurred only a few centuries ago, it remains unclear whether these differences are due to an extinction debt in ancient forests (i.e., a delay in local species extinction), a colonization credit in post-agricultural forests (i.e., species are yet to colonize a patch), or both.
Wonga's move today is akin to debt jubilees in ancient civilizations where on a particular day, rulers would free subjects of their debts.
Some other entries seem to owe debts to Klee: "Ancient Inquiries," by Maureen Renahan Krinsley, and "CC24," by Marty Epp.
The ministers called for a "foreclosure sabbatical" — invoking the biblical term for the ancient Judaic concept of forgiving debts every seventh year.
It may also end up infecting as-yet healthy banks.As the Chinese start preparing for the lunar new year by ancient tradition a time for debts to be settled the money may grow tight.
The citizens will be left with nothing but the debt and upkeep of an ancient stadium hurtling towards obsolescence.
The small but increasingly influential group behind it, the Hindu American Foundation, suggests only that people become more aware of yoga's debt to the faith's ancient traditions.
