Ancient Sporting Festivals
The origins of many aspects sporting festivals may date to funeral games of the Mycenean period. Early examples are known such as those held for Patroclus by Achilles, described by Homer and in Book 5 of Virgil's Aeneid, in which Aeneas organizes athletic contests on the anniversary of his father's death. Along with the great Olympic stadium at Olympia, an ancient stadium dating to the Iron Age exists in Telltown in Ireland that myths and legends suggest was the site of the Tailteann games. Labib Boutros, former director of athletics at the American University of Beirut has conducted recent studies of an ancient stadium in Amrit, Syria (ancient "Marathos") and suggested that its construction may date back as far as 1500 BC, saying that the Amrit stadium held festivals that were "devoted to sports in Phoenicia several centuries before the Olympic Games"
Read more about this topic: History Of Sport
Famous quotes containing the words ancient, sporting and/or festivals:
“Under bare Ben Bulbens head
In Drumcliff churchyard Yeats is laid.
An ancestor was rector there
Long years ago, a church stands near,
By the road an ancient cross.
No marble, no conventional phrase;
On limestone quarried near the spot
By his command these words are cut:
Cast a cold eye
On life, on death.
Horseman pass by!”
—William Butler Yeats (18651939)
“I once heard of a murderer who propped his two victims up against a chess board in sporting attitudes and was able to get as far as Seattle before his crime was discovered.”
—Robert Benchley (18891945)
“Why wont they let a year die without bringing in a new one on the instant, cant they use birth control on time? I want an interregnum. The stupid years patter on with unrelenting feet, never stoppingrising to little monotonous peaks in our imaginations at festivals like New Years and Easter and ChristmasBut, goodness, why need they do it?”
—John Dos Passos (18961970)