BC2400c.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 |
Was Egypt the Well-Spring of Ballplaying? Text Has “Strike the Ball” Reference
| Salience | Noteworthy |
|---|---|
| Tags | |
| Location | |
| City/State/Country: | Egypt |
| Modern Address | |
| Game | Sekar-hematSekar-hemat |
| Immediacy of Report | Retrospective |
| Age of Players | |
| Holiday | |
| Notables | |
| Text | [A]“The earliest known references to seker-hemat (translation: “batting the ball”) as a fertility rite and ritual of renewal are inscribed in pyramids dating to 2400 BC.” Egyptologist Peter Piccione reads Pyramid Texts Spell 254 as commanding a pharaoh to cross the heavens and “strike the ball” in the meadow of the sacred Apis bull. [B]Piccione’s reading seems consistent with Robert Henderson’s identification of ancient Egypt as the source of ballplaying: “It is the purpose of this book to show that all modern games played with bat and ball descend from one common source: an ancient fertility rite observed by Priest–Kings in the Egypt of the Pyramids.”
|
| Sources | [A] Piccione, Peter, “Pharaoh at the Bat,” College of Charlestown Magazine(Spring/Summer 2003), p.36. From a clipping in the Giamatti Center’s “Origins” file in Cooperstown. [B]Henderson, Robert W.,Ball, Bat and Bishop: The Origins of Ball Games [Rockport Press, 1947], page 4. |
| Warning | |
| Comment | David Block [Baseball Before We Knew It, page 303 (note 1)] writes that Piccione’s identification of seker-hemat with baseball is “apparently speculative in nature.” Edit with form to add a comment |
| Query | It would be good to confirm details in an academic source and to see whether Egyptologists have any other interpretations of this text – and how Egyptian rites employed the ball as a symbol of fertility. Edit with form to add a query |
| Source Image | [[Image:|left|thumb]] |
| External Number | |
| Submitted by | |
| Submission Note | |
| Has Supplemental Text |
-2400c.1 Was Egypt the Well-Spring of Ballplaying? Text Has “Strike the Ball” Reference"
Comments
<comments voting="Plus" />