Ancient Sports Elsewhere
Sports that are at least two and a half thousand years old include hurling in Ireland, harpastum (similar to rugby) in Rome, cuju (similar to association football) in China, and polo in Persia. The Mesoamerican ballgame originated over three thousand years ago. There are artifacts and structures that suggest that the Chinese engaged in sporting activities as early as 2000 BC. Gymnastics appears to have been a popular sport in China's ancient past. Ancient Persian sports such as the traditional Iranian martial art of Zourkhaneh. Among other sports that originated in Persia are polo and jousting. A polished bone implement found at Eva in Tennessee, USA and dated to around 5000 BC has been construed as a possible sporting device used in a "ring and pin" game.
Read more about this topic: History Of Sport
Famous quotes containing the words ancient and/or sports:
“He was the man who of all modern, and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul.... He needed not the spectacles of books to read Nature; he looked inwards, and found her there.”
—John Dryden (1631–1700)
“There be some sports are painful, and their labor
Delight in them sets off. Some kinds of baseness
Are nobly undergone, and most poor matters
Point to rich ends.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)