Olympic Games (interesting, actually)

[Sean Manning]

Sports is in my view more than physical exercise: Did the Egyptians host regular and supra-regional sports games? Did they associate special ideas like peace with them? Did their games have more or less established rules? Were their fighters (semi-)professionals? Did they award prizes at tournaments? Did they have a sports infrastucture (stadions, arenas with thousands of spectators)? Did they have something like the gymnasium? Did they have professional training and nutrition? Were ancient Egyptians about their sports just as enthusiasatic as were the Greeks and Romans? Were their sportsmen just as much hailed as heros and role models?

All these elements of modern sports were present in Greece and Rome, for over a millenium, so it is only fair to give them the credit for inventing 'sports', even though it needed a second start in modern times. Did you know, for example, that boxing was olympic as early as 688 BC? That IS a mighty tradition.

I don't know, Stefan. I'd have to do some research on sports in ancient cultures other than Greece and Rome. Also, sporting culture in your sense has nothing to do with civilization or literacy, so a Greek-style sporting culture could have been in one of the many early societies which we know very little about. We know that wrestling contests didn't start and stop with the Olympics ...

I can guess at answers to some of your questions. Did Egyptians see athletes as role models? Quite likely, humans are strange that way. Were there rules? There are in most folk wrestling systems. Did they build expensive facilities for sports? Probably not, but that is one of the ways that the Greeks were different ... their leaders sometimes spent money on places for the public to enjoy themselves. Temples or city walls or roads serve the public good too, but no more than they serve the government's. As for professional instructors, those are fairly common, and the wrestling style in the Beni Hassan frescos is sophisticated, but again I don't know if there is any evidence from Egypt.