History of sport
[citation needed] As one delves further back in history, dwindling evidence makes theories of the origins and purposes of sport more and more difficult to support.
[3][4][5] Cave paintings in the Bayankhongor Province of Mongolia dating back to the Neolithic Age (c. 7000 BC) show a wrestling match surrounded by crowds.
[6][failed verification] Neolithic Rock art found at the cave of swimmers in Wadi Sura, near Gilf Kebir in Egypt shows evidence of swimming and archery being practiced around 10,000 BCE.
[11] A cast bronze figurine[12] (perhaps the base of a vase) found at Khafaji in Iraq shows two figures in a wrestling hold and dates to around 2600 BC.
[17] Monuments to the Pharaohs found at Beni Hasan dating to around 2000 BC[18] indicate that a number of sports, including wrestling, weightlifting, long jump, swimming, rowing, archery, fishing[17] and athletics, as well as various kinds of ball games, were well-developed and regulated in Ancient Egypt.
[9][20] The Minoan art of Bronze Age Crete depict ritual sporting events - thus a fresco dating to 1500 BC records gymnastics in the form of religious bull-leaping and possibly bullfighting.
A polished bone implement found at Eva in Tennessee, United States and dated to around 5000 BC has been construed as a possible sporting device used in a "ring and pin" game.
[11] Various traditional sports of India are believed to be thousands of years old, with kho-kho having been played since at least the fourth century BC,[23] aspects of kabaddi having potentially been mentioned in the Mahabharata, and atya-patya having been described in the Naṟṟiṇai, around 300 AD.
[24][25][26] For at least 900 years, entire villages had competed with each other in rough, and sometimes violent, ballgames in England (Shrovetide football) and Ireland (caid).
In comparison, the game of calcio Fiorentino, in Florence, Italy, was originally reserved for combat sports such as fencing and jousting being popular.
Long summer days provided predictable opportunities for free time, when peasants could engage in athletic activities.
Swimming, wrestling, and racing were common among all ages and both genders, while organized ball games of various types can be found in every medieval society and culture.
[27] The participation of sports (ball games to be exact) at the time loosened control the ruling class had over the peasants; this is not a rare trend throughout history.
By the fourteenth century no fewer than thirty bans have been placed by English kings on ball games such as football, handball, and hurling.
Those with political backing and social favor were able to accumulate property and goods to ensure a comfortable life after their competitive days were over.
[27] These tournaments consequently attracted many people to attend for various purposes such as marriages, and trade of livestock and land or wares provided by merchants and vendors.
These sporting events went beyond borders and were accompanied by a common cultural base, including courtesy, fair play, honor, and loyalty.
During the Renaissance, educators, and medical surgeons promoted playing sports because of their numerous physical and psychological benefits to the human body.
These new radical ideas about sports made their way into books, and films, and eventually became part of the social culture during the Renaissance.
The use of these drugs has always been frowned on but in recent history there have also been agencies set up to monitor professional athletes and ensure fair play in the sport.
Writing about cricket in particular, John Leech has explained the role of Puritan power, the English Civil War, and the Restoration of the monarchy in England.
The rules and regulations devised at English institutions began to be applied to the wider game, with governing bodies in England being set up for a number of sports by the end of the 19th century.
[34][35][36] The influence of British sports and their codified rules began to spread across the world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, particularly association football.
A number of major teams elsewhere in the world still show these British origins in their names, such as A.C. Milan in Italy, Grêmio Foot-Ball Porto Alegrense in Brazil, and Athletic Bilbao in Spain.
The revival of the Olympic Games by Baron Pierre de Coubertin was also heavily influenced by the amateur ethos of the English public schools.
[40] Baseball (closely related to English rounders and French la soule, and less clearly connected to cricket) became established in the urban Northeastern United States, with the first rules being codified in the 1840s, while American football was very popular in the south-east, with baseball spreading to the south, and American football spreading to the north after the Civil War.
An extract from an 18th-century diary containing the oldest known reference to baseball is among the items on display in a new exhibition in London exploring the English origins and cricketing connections of America's national sport.
While baseball was once claimed to have been invented in the U.S. in the mid-19th century, recent findings suggest a sport of the same name may have evolved decades earlier alongside cricket, crossing the Atlantic with English settlers to the American colonies.
One notable discovery found in a shed in a village in Surrey, southern England, in 2008 was a handwritten 18th-century diary belonging to a local lawyer, William Bray.
[45] Urban sports in general have become prioritized to a greater extent for inclusion in the Olympic Games, due to their ability to appeal to youth and generate digital engagement.
