-2600c.1
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
 |
| Prominent Milestones |
| Misc BB Firsts |
| Add a Misc BB First |
| About the Chronology |
| Tom Altherr Dedication |
| Add a Chronology Entry |
| Open Queries |
| Open Numbers |
| Most Aged |
"The Ball Enters History"
| Salience | Noteworthy |
|---|---|
| Tags | The BallThe Ball |
| Location | |
| City/State/Country: | Mesopotamia |
| Modern Address | |
| Game | |
| Immediacy of Report | Retrospective |
| Age of Players | AdultAdult |
| Holiday | |
| Notables | |
| Text | When the ball finally enters history, it arrives as a bizarre and homoerotic form of polo played on the backs not of horses, but of humans. The account of this strange sport is fond in the Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the first works of literature ever written. It was carved into cuneiform tablets around 2600BC. . . . " [A translation of the text: "[(His) comrades are roused up with his ball (game), the young men of Uruk are continually disturbed in their bedrooms (with a summons to play)"]
|
| Sources | John Fox, The Ball: Discovering the Object of the Game (Harper Perennial, 2012), page 36. For the later Asian game, see https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/found-ancient-balls-xinjiang. |
| Warning |
|
| Comment | Fox places the setting for the Gilgamesh story in what is now southern Iraq. John Fox observes (Fox, p. 37) that this ancient piggy-back ball game also is seen in Egypt's Middle Kingdom a few centuries later, and in ancient Greece, where it was known as ephedrimos. He also reports that "the actual balls used in [Egyptian] games have turned up with some frequency in Egyptian tombs . . . . Stitched leather balls, bearing an uncanny resemblance to modern-day hacky-sacks, were stuffed with straw, reeds, hair, or yarn. Balls made of papyrus, palm leaves, and linen wound around a pottery core have turned up as well." (Fox, p. 39) Note: In 2020, it was reported that around 1000 BCE stuffed leather balls were possibly used by Uighurs in what is now norther China, plausible in an ancient form of equestrian polo.
Edit with form to add a comment |
| Query | Do we know of speculation -- or evidence -- as to how this piggy-back ball game might have been played, and how it could have been made attractive to it players? Edit with form to add a query |
| Source Image | [[Image:|left|thumb]] |
| External Number | |
| Submitted by | Mark Schoenberg and John Thorn |
| Submission Note | Emails of 11/23/2020 |
| Has Supplemental Text |
-2600c.1 "The Ball Enters History""
Comments
<comments voting="Plus" />