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1. Fall/Winter 2020 thewha.org Vol. XXXVI No. 2
World History Bulletin
Sport in World History

2. World History Bulletin
ISSN: 0886-117X
H. Micheal Tarver
Editor-in-Chief
Nicholas Di Liberto
Associate Editor
Yi Guolin
Book Review Editor
WHB Editorial Board (2020-2022)
H. Micheal Tarver – Arkansas Tech University
Editor-in-Chief, World History Bulletin
Scott C. M. Bailey – Kansai Gaidai University
Shannon Bontrager – Georgia Highlands College
Mehdi Estakhr – Alabama State University
Ian Christopher Fletcher – Georgia State University
Jonas Kauffeldt – University of North Georgia
Sungshin Kim – University of North Georgia
Nathan Pavalko – Pellissippi State Community College
Michael Proulx – University of North Georgia
Joseph M. Snyder – Southeast Missouri State University
Aytaç Yürükçü – University of Eastern Finland
bulletin@thewha.org
Department of History
Arkansas Tech University
407 West Q Street - Ste. 244
Russellville, AR 72801
479.968.0265
Cover Image
Yokohama Sumo Wrestler Defeating a Foreigner
by Ippōsai Yoshifuji (1828–1887)
(Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Period: Edo period (1615–1868)
Date: 2nd month, 1861
Culture: Japan
Medium: Woodblock print; ink and color on paper
Dimensions: Image: 14 1/2 x 10 in. (36.8 x 25.4 cm)
Classification: Prints
Credit Line: Bequest of William S. Lieberman, 2005
Accession Number: 2007.49.253
Editor’s Note
November 2020
Greetings from the editors of the World History Bulletin.
This issue of the Bulletin addresses the topic of sports and
world history. Guest edited by Mauricio Borrero of St. Johns
University (NY), this issue brings together an assortment of
teachers and scholars from around the world. In addition,
this issue contains a few non-theme essays, including a
featured lesson plan and sample syllabi by Pat Manning, a
past-president of the American Historical Association and
pioneer in the field of world history.
Although many of us continue to work from home in this
uncertain time, the Bulletin will remain on schedule for the
next issue. As such, essays for the Spring 2021 issue should
be received no later than February 15, 2021. If you receive
your WHA mail at school and are working from home,
please notify the WHA Headquarters to have your address
temporarily changed.
Micheal Tarver
Editor-in-Chief

3. Table of Contents
Editor’s Note Inside Front Cover
Letter From the Executive Director 2
Letter from the President 3
WHB Focus Issue, Guest Editor - Mauricio Borrero
Teaching World History with Sport 4
Mauricio Borrero
Discipline, Education, and Mass Games: Ideological Exchange and Sport Diplomacy
between North Korea and Guyana during the Cold War 7
Moe Taylor
Sport Diplomacy, U.S.-Iran Relations and the Need to Look Beyond the Cold War 12
Darius Wainwright
Sport as a Microcosm of World History: Dr. Sammy Lee’s Role in Asian-American
History and Cold War Geopolitics 15
Jiho Cailyn Lee
Sports and Nationalism in Puerto Rican Cultural Identity 19
Javier Ruiz
The Sport Lens: Why Africanists and World Historians Should Teach Sport 22
Michelle Marie Sikes
Teaching Sport in World History in the Momentous Fall of 2020:
Meaningful Engagement Through Self-Reflection 26
Johanna Mellis
Imperialism, Trade and Sport in the High School World History Survey 30
Christopher Ferraro
The Ancient and Modern Olympics: Designing Remote Learning Plans to
Engage History Students
Robert W
. Maloy, Erich Leaper, and Sharon A. Edwards 33
Evidence of Ancient Greek Athletics in Pindar’s Writings 37
Theodore J. Drizis
Ancient Egyptian Sports and Fundamental Principles of Olympics 39
Doaa El-Shereef
Featured Lesson Plan: Teaching World History Based on A History of Humanity 45
Patrick Manning
Learning about World History and Global History in Latin America during Sars-Cov2 Pandemic:
Review of Macrohistory and the Current World, II 64
Lilia Martínez, Alejandra Mina, Michelle Lacoste Adunka,
César Duque-Sánchez, Andrea Torrealba, and Santiago Forero
Colonial Encounters and the Women’s Question in Late Nineteenth Century Bengali Literature 67
Aritra De

4. LETTER FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR -
WORLD HISTORY ASSOCIATION
With the pandemic affecting humans on a global scale, this fall’s issue of the World History Bulletin is a welcome break in the
focus on public health. Social history, including sports history, helps translate decades and centuries into something coherent.
The roots of the modern Olympics lie in Ancient Greece; since the nineteenth century, Olympic moments mirrored societal
struggles. For example, at the 1900 games in Paris the first female athletes participated; at the 1936 games in Berlin, Jesse
Owens broke records as a Black athlete competing in Nazi territory; and in 1968 the games in Mexico City were marked by
civil rights protests. The U.S. has historical sports traditions, too. In 1910, Taft was the first American president to throw out
the first pitch of the baseball season. Since then, all presidents to date except two have done so. Thank you to Editor Micheal
Tarver for his expansive vision of themes for readers to enjoy.
In 2020, the WHA is dedicated to offering new opportunities to keep us thinking and learning. The most prominent of these
is our Under the Baobab series. This series continues, so there are future opportunities to participate. If you would like to
catch up on past Baobab sessions, you can start at the webpage: https://www.thewha.org/conferences/under-the-baobab/. Our
first session answered the question, “How can History help you during a Pandemic?” with a panel including high school and
college teachers. Keeping with reemerging themes of 2020, Baobab II reframing revolutions, “Centering Indigenous Black
& Women’s Voices in the Age of Revolution.” This session recording is available on the Baobab page. Baobab III celebrated
the Journal of World History’s 30th birthday. It featured several JWH authors and Editor Matthew Romaniello. This session
is posted on the Baobab page; other recordings will be available by the end of 2020.
WHA affiliates around the country have been busy. SEWHA held an online conference in October on “Catalysts of Social
Change.” In February the WHAT virtual conference will explore “A World of Things: Consumerism, Consumption, and
Commodities.” NERWHA held two sessions, one a book club format and the second a study on teaching anti-racism with
suggested books. Information on upcoming sessions can be found on the WHA website under affiliate news & events, the
Announcements section and WHA social media posts.
This year, the WHA has also started a blog, Pandem-Mondus, which can be found here: https://www.thewha.org/wha-blog/.
Topics include responses to current events, such as “The WHA Challenges Racism” and “Pandemic Perspectives: Seoul,”
written by a secondary school student in South Korea. More in-depth information about Baobab sessions can be found here
as well. If you have a blog idea, please contact our office. We have also committed to keeping members well-informed on
a weekly basis through social media. Follow us on Twitter (@WHAtweets), Facebook (The World History Association), and
Instagram (@worldhistoryassociation). We post about career diversity references, WHA affiliate events, WHA prizes, Under
the Baobab news, relevant conferences sponsored by sister organizations, recent world history scholarship, and news. If you
are not currently on these networks or not networked with the WHA, we invite you to link in and stay well-informed.
Finally, we are pleased to welcome our 2020 – 2021 graduate assistant, Luke Sebastian Scalone, a Ph.D. Candidate at
Northeastern University studying modern France and the French colonial empire in the Maghrib. His research looks at the
forging of a “Vichy Tunisia” and is particularly focused on the imperial connections that existed between France, Italy, and
North Africa. In addition to his research at Northeastern and his work with the World History Association, he has taught
courses on Colonialism/Imperialism and World History, is a network editor for H-French-Colonial, co-organizes a NorthAfrica
working group for graduate students and post-doctoral fellows in the Boston area, has been a Visiting Research Fellow at the
Centre d’Etudes Maghrébines à Tunis, and is an officer for the New England Regional World History Association [NERWHA].
He was the recipient of the WHA Phi Alpha Theta prize in 2018; he received the award at our Milwaukee Conference.
Our office and the WHA officers will keep members informed soon about gatherings in 2021. Should you have any questions
about any WHA matters, always feel free to contact us at info@thewha.org or call 617-373-6818.
Best wishes,
Kerry Vieira
World History Bulletin • Vol XXXVI • No. 2 • Page 2

5. LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT -
WORLD HISTORY ASSOCIATION
October 2020
We tell our students that academic history is a tool for making sense of our place in the world, and that doing
history builds skills to evaluate evidence, discern bias, and develop persuasive narratives. At least that’s what I tell
my students every term, year after year. We’re not here to memorize facts, but rather to investigate other people’s
storytelling about the past, evaluate it, and then offer evidenced-based interpretations of our own.
As I reflect on the first ten months of my presidency and look ahead to the second year of my term, it seems that
such a tool kit is especially valuable now, wherever you live. In the U.S., though, such skills sadly are increasingly
overlooked in favor of bluster, spin, and willful misrepresentation—justified under the guise that acknowledging
differences in perspective means doing away with verifiable evidence. It’s a cliché that I actually work to ingrain in
my students’ habits of mind: everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own facts.
In current American public discourse, especially during the election campaign, the widening gulf of opinion has
turned into fervent ideological struggles over what constitutes facts. Civility is crumbling under the pressure of
competing perspectives of reality. It’s increasingly hard to be a global historian when our audience doesn’t inhabit a
single world, let alone share a sense of our common past.
In this tumultuous time, the work of teachers, researchers, and scholarly societies is especially important. The global
Covid-19 pandemic continues to scuttle annual meetings and conferences, or move them online, while time to read
academic journals competes with the fast-changing news cycles and constantly shifting parameters for online and in-
person teaching. Keeping up with current events and the morphing of our professional responsibilities is exhausting.
That’s why the WHA is contributing to public dialog. Along with other scholarly societies, we are monitoring the
global public health landscape, sharing news to keep our members safe. In 2020, the WHA has written or signed on
to an unprecedented number of public advocacy statements, asking for government and public attention on issues
of health, human rights, immigration as it pertains to the movement of students, scholars, and ideas, diversity and
inclusion, and the free exchange of information.
Most importantly, the Association strives to be here for our members, supporting you to do the work that matters
for your local context, be it teaching, curriculum development, public advocacy, fact checking, or sharing reliable
information about peoples and their pasts. We continue to perform our foundational mission: provide a gathering
place for individuals to promote the active, engaged teaching and investigation of world history. In this year’s
extraordinary context, that means providing platforms to connect practitioners, mutual aid to amplify our voices,
and a community that can persuasively disseminate a useful intellectual tool kit in educational settings and in the
public agora.
As world historians, we’re especially good at taking the long view, able to discern patterns that stretch beyond a
human lifetime and transcend geographic borders. Together, we need to keep emphasizing these skills and advocating
for their public practice. Whether you’re sheltering in place, teaching in-person within the limits of PPE and social
distancing, or freely moving about (we don’t have any registered members in New Zealand, so that’s not likely),
remember that the work we do as teachers and researchers makes a difference, even when—especially when—the
world is changing at a pace faster than historians are used to documenting.
Laura J. Mitchell
World History Bulletin • Vol XXXVI • No. 2 • Page 3

6. In recent decades, sport history has
thrived as a field of scholarship, as
evidenced by the publication and
broadcasting of numerous
monographs, memoirs, and
documentaries, as well as the
frequent calls for papers for national
and international conferences. The
disciplinary versatility and
transnational nature of sport makes
it a valuable companion to the
concerns and goals of world history.
The historian’s study of sport
involves more than the study of
sport itself, and intersects with
issues of class, race, gender,
business, entertainment, fashion,
culture, politics, nationalism, and
internationalism. The growth of
sport history courses throughout the
country suggests that students
respond well to this pedagogical
approach to the study of history. 1
As one of our contributors, Michelle
Sikes, concisely puts it, “sport
provides students with an accessible
and familiar way to learn about a
range of themes and ideas – race,
politics, and identity formation
among others.”
This special issue includes essays
covering a wide variety of topics
and approaches to the study of sport
in world history. It features essays
written by authors from a wide
variety of countries including the
United Kingdom, Greece, Egypt,
Puerto Rico, and the United States.
They teach in a variety of
institutions from universities to high
schools and secondary schools.
Some are independent scholars and,
in one case, a high school student.
The essays are divided in three
general sections: those that are
primarily products of research on
sport history, those that feature
discussions of syllabi and lesson
plans, and those that highlight the
use of specific sources to advance
the study of sport history.
RESEARCH
The first section features four
research-driven pieces that focus on
prominent topics within sport
history research: the Cold War,
ethnic or national identity issues,
and the use of sports as a vehicle for
political activism.
Many readers’ entry point into the
broader connotations of sport comes
via the Cold War and the idea that
sport served as a proxy for the larger
confrontation between the two
superpowers, and their political and
ideological systems. With the
Soviet Union’s first appearance in
the Olympic stage at the 1952
Helsinki Games, sport quickly
became one of the main “soft power”
fronts of the Cold War. Over the
past decade historians have
produced a wide range of original
research on sport and the Cold
War.2
The essays by Moe Taylor and
Darius Wainwright build on this
historiography, but take us down
some of the less traveled side streets
of the research on sport and the Cold
War. Taylor focuses on Guyana’s
Mass Games instituted by Prime
Minister Forbes Burnham in the
1980s and inspired by the North
FOCUS ISSUE:
SPORT IN WORLD HISTORY
Mauricio Borrero
Guest Editor
Eric Martinez, Edad Mercier, and John Slavnik
Editorial Assistants
TEACHING WORLD HISTORY WITH SPORT
Mauricio Borrero | St. John’s University | borrerom@stjohns.edu
World History Bulletin • Vol XXXVI • No. 2 • Page 4

7. Korean model of massive public
spectacles featuring mass
gymnastics, music, and highly
coordinated backdrops that changed
throughout the performance.
Organized with the help of North
Korean advisors, these Mass Games
were a unique collaboration
between a newly-independent
Guyana and North Korea, at a time
when North Korea was less isolated
than it is now and a part of a still
viable Communist world. Taylor
situates the Mass Games in the
context of Burnham’s obsession
with ridding Guyana of the
indiscipline that he believed was a
legacy of colonial rule. Guyana’s
Mass Games were a product of the
decolonization and Cold War
dynamics of the 1960s and 1970s,
but in spirit they also hark back to
the mass physical exercise
extravaganzas we associate with
Stalin’s Soviet Union and Hitler’s
Germany.
Darius Wainwright examines
“sport diplomacy” between Iran and
the United States during the
Eisenhower administration.
Following the anti-American
backlash in Iran as a result of the
CIA-inspired coup that deposed
Prime Minister Mohammad
Mossagdeh in August 1953, US
diplomats and embassy officials
sought to rebuild the image of the
United States, settling on sport
exchanges as a form of cultural
diplomacy. The initiative was
relatively successful but not
sustained in a consistent manner. It
does reveal though, as Wainwright
suggests, that in the case of Iran
“sport diplomacy remains a key,
unexplored cornerstone of US-Iran
relations.”
Ja
vier Ruiz’s essay focuses on the
three-week moment of collective
bonding and euphoria that
accompanied Puerto Rico’s run to
the finals in the 2017 World
Baseball Classic. Ruiz details the
ways in which Puerto Ricans
adopted and supported the baseball
team, most notably in the case of
men and boys of all ages who dyed
their hair, beards, or moustaches in
various shades of the color blonde in
solidarity with team players who
had done so as a bonding experience.
As Ruiz notes, “The truth is that
internationally Puerto Rico is a
nation, sportingly speaking.” Ruiz’s
example of the Puerto Rican
baseball team adds to the numerous
cases, from Basque and French
colonial Algerian soccer teams to
the recent case of the
Haudenosaunee Nationals lacrosse
team, where sport can advance a de
facto national or ethnic identity for
communities who do not have the
political sovereignty they desire.
The career of Dr. Sammy Lee
(1920-2016), whose triumphs at the
1952 Olympics diving competitions
made him the first Asian-American
male athlete to win and Olympic
gold medal, straddled the issues of
identity and the use of sport in the
Cold War. As noted in Jiho Cailyn
Lee’s essay, Lee faced the
discrimination that other minority
athletes have faced in the United
States. In his case, it was the
restrictions placed on children of
color wanting to use the Los
Angeles public swimming pools.
Even after his Olympic victories,
Lee faced discrimination when
purchasing a home in California.
And yet, he was willing to be
featured as a prominent Asian-
American in the 1950s State
Department campaigns to woo
newly decolonized Asian nations to
the Western side in the Cold War.
TEACHING
Building on the themes raised by
these four research-driven examples,
it is not surprising to find that sport
history can play an important role in
the world history classroom. The
next four essays engage readers
with creative pedagogical
approaches that include sport
historical themes into the
curriculum.
At the college level, Michelle
Sikes and Johanna Mellis present us
with highly topical and relevant
attempts to design sport history
courses in response to the fluid
political and medical situation that
characterized the year 2020. Sikes,
an Africanist by training, shares
insights learned from teaching an
undergraduate course, “Sport in
African history,” to a population of
students who were majoring in
kinesiology and did not have a
strong background in history, let
alone African history. The course’s
three-pronged focus on African
football histories, East African
long-distance running, and the role
of sport in anti-apartheid struggles,
require students to engage with
Africa’s role in world history and
reflect on assumptions they may
have held about “fair play” and the
meritocratic nature of sport.
Mellis in turn guides us through
the process of creating, and teaching
for the first time in Fall 2020, a new
course on sport in world history at a
small, private liberal arts college. In
addition to the challenges that such
an endeavor usually brings, Mellis
had to adapt to the rapidly-changing
dynamics of a summer of Covid and
the political activism of Black Lives
Matter. In this context, and partly in
response to students’ own interests,
the course objectives and learning
goals emphasized critical
reflections on the built-in power
World History Bulletin • Vol XXXVI • No. 2 • Page 5

8. social and global imbalances in the
construction of modern sport.
Mellis also encouraged students to
reflect on the contexts of their own
involvement in sport.
Christopher Ferraro draws from
topics such as the role of sport in
British colonial educational policies,
the links between U.S. commercial
interests in sugar and bananas and
the spread of baseball to Cuba and
Central America, as well as the
propaganda value of major sport
events for Mussolini and Hitler to
call for the inclusion of more sport-
related themes in the high school
world history curriculum. As he
notes, the College Board has
recognized the pedagogical value of
sport by occasionally featuring
Document Based Questions on
topics such as the relationship
between cricket and colonial
politics.
The final pedagogical piece in this
special issue is a collective piece
written by Robert Maloy, Erich
Leaper, and Sharon Edwards
relating their experiences in
designing an asynchronous remote
learning experience for 7th
grade
history students in response to the
changes brought about by the spring
2020 coronavirus pandemic. The
result was a week-long module on
“The Ancient and Modern
Olympics” that was connected to
one of the 7th
grade history learning
standards about the
1
Readers interested in further
investigating the research and pedagogical
possibilities of sport history are encouraged
to visit the H-Sport website
(https://networks.h-net.org/h-sport). H-
Sport is one of the many scholarly networks
in the H-Net universe and has a particularly
valuable section on syllabi and other
teaching materials.
accomplishments of the Ancient
Greeks. In particular, the authors
sought to integrate discussions
about what they call “hidden
histories and untold stories” in sport,
in their case the histories of women
in sport, First American marathon
runners, and Olympic athletes’
political protests. A bigger and
newer challenge was devising “off
screen” activities that addressed the
“zoom fatigue” of a highly energetic
student population.
SOURCES
The last two essays touch on
imaginative ways in which primary
sources from other disciplines can
help us reconstruct the presence and
the role of athletics in the Ancient
Egyptian and Ancient Greek worlds.
Doaa El-Shereef draws from the
rich visual archeological evidence
of tombs and pyramids to remind us
of the degree to which sport was an
important feature of ancient
Egyptian life. In addition to sports
one would expect--, there are some
relative surprises, such as handball
and a version of field hockey. El-
Shereef’s also discusses the
important Heb-Sed jubilee festival,
to be held once a pharaoh had ruled
for thirty years, and notes, “The
Pharaoh then ran a ritual course
eight times: four times as the
Pharaoh of Upper Egypt and
another four as the Pharaoh of
2
The historiography of sport and the
Cold War is extensive. For one of the most
recent explorations of the topic, see Robert
Edelman and Christopher Young, eds., The
Whole World Was Watching: Sport in the
Cold War (Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 2019). The book is the product of a
multi-year set of three international
conferences in New York, Moscow, and
Lower Egypt.” Besides its
ceremonial value, the Jubilee
festival carried political meaning in
that it allowed the pharaoh to
“renew” his possession of a district
by showing that he was still
physically able to rule.
In turn, Theodore Drizis parses
through the historical commentaries
to Pindar’s biographies to reveal
comments about the origins and
traditions of the Ancient Olympic
games as well as a number of sports
that were not part of the modern
Olympic canon restored by Baron
de Coubertin in the 19th
century.
We learn about other Games that
were later overshadowed by the
Olympic Games, their origin myths,
and we learn about sports such as
the pankration—a free-style mix of
boxing and wrestling that is perhaps
a forerunner of contemporary mixed
martial arts—and, why not, we learn
about the mule race.
***
The rich variety of research,
teaching, and source materials
presented in this special issue alert
us to the many possible pedagogical
possibilities of a thriving field of
research, whose transnational and
interdisciplinary DNA is very much
in alignment with that of World
History as a whole.
Cambridge, UK. Readers should also
consult the related digital project “Sport in
the Cold War,” housed by the Wilson
Center
(https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/the
me/sport-in-the-cold-war/resources) and
featuring over forty podcasts with sport
history scholars.
World History Bulletin • Vol XXXVI • No. 2 • Page 6

9. Many of today's sports were practiced
by ancient Egyptians, as described by
many paintings and relief scenes
depicted on the walls of ancient
temples and tombs all over Egypt.
Thousands of years ago, Ancient
Egyptians laid down the basic rules for
competitive games. They chose neutral
referees, uniforms for each team in
multiplayer games, and celebrated
winners by dressing them with
different necklaces.
Ancient Egyptians even held many
local and international sports
competitions and festivals where the
best athletes from other countries
participated. Prizes were given to the
winners to encourage them. These
competitions were ruled by judges
from Mittani Empire (between northern
of Syria, Turkey, Iran and Iraq) and
Canaanites cities (Palestine, Lebanon
and Syria) and Nubia cities (Southern
of Egypt and Sudan). Ancient Egyptian
kings, princes, and statesmen were
keen on attending sports competitions,
which they encouraged and provided
with the necessary equipment.
Popular individual sports such as
hunting, fishing, boxing, javelin
throwing, wrestling, gymnastics,
weightlifting, and rowing and the
ancient Egyptian version of hockey
were the most popular team sports, and
a form tug-of-war. Archery was
popular as well, but primarily limited to
the royalty and nobility.
Sporting events in ancient Egypt
were part of the religious rituals and
festivals honoring the gods.
Participants often staged simulated
battles between Horus and Set's
followers to celebrate Horus' victory
and celebrate the harmony and balance
over the forces of chaos.
This essay focuses on four aspects
of sports in Ancient Egypt: the role of
sports in society, sports of the nobility,
ancient Egyptian sports that later
became Olympic sports, and the
invention of the Jubilee and its
celebration.
The Role of Sports in Ancient Egypt
The ancient Egyptians paid great
attention to physical sport. The
pyramids reveal two types of physical
sports, a light-performing type whose
purpose was agility and pleasure, and
another type that required tremendous
effort and skill to perform. Many tomb
paintings depict archers aiming at
targets rather than animals during a
hunt, so Egyptologists are confident
that archery was also a sport. All of
these sports appear in the wall art in
ancient Egyptian tomb painting, as in
the Tombs of Bani Hassan (2055
BCE—1650 BCE) and the tomb of
Amenhotep (Dynasty XVIII).
Tombs of Bani Hassan (2055–1650 BCE)
The necropolis of Bani Hassan
occupies a range of east-bank limestone
cliffs some 20 km south of Minya. It is
a beautiful and meaningful
archaeological site because of the
beautiful wall paintings that give a
glimpse of daily life and the 11th and
12th dynasties' political situation.
The back wall shows a sequence of
wrestling moves that are still used
today. The right (south) wall is
decorated with scenes from the
nobleman’s daily life, with potters,
metalworkers, and a flax harvest,
among others. Of 39 tombs on the
upper part of the cliff, only 12 were
decorated.
Tomb of Amenhotep II (Dynasty XVIII)
This 91-meter-long tomb was built
for Amenhotep II (sometimes also
called Amenophis II), who succeeded
his father, the great king Tuthmosis III.
Amenhotep II was the paragon of the
athletic kings of the early Eighteenth
Dynasty and boasted of physically
Homeric deeds. He was buried in Tomb
35 of the Valley of the Kings at Thebes.
The essential characteristic of the
tombs of Bani Hassan and the cemetery
of "Amenhotep" is the presence of a
group of drawings depicting Egyptian
athletes practicing free wrestling,
fencing, and archery, weightlifting,
gymnastics, boxing, running, and other
games.
Sports of the Nobility in Ancient
Egypt
Sports formed part of a new pharaoh's
coronation celebrations; nobles also
regularly went on hunting expeditions
in their chariots. Similarly, Egypt's
nobility enjoyed participating in and
watching sports, and women's
gymnastics dance competitions were
one form of competitive sport
supported by the nobles. The nobility
also supported pageants and rowing
competitions, as shown below in
examples from five tombs.
A NCIENT EGYPTIAN SPORTS AND FUNDAMENTAL
PRINCIPLES OF OLYMPICS
Doaa El-Shereef | doaaelshereef@hotmail.com
World History Bulletin • Vol XXXVI • No. 2 • Page 39

10. Amenhotep II
Relief of Amenhotep II in his chariot
firing arrows at a copper ingot target,
Temple of Amun, Thebes.
Amenhotep II was the seventh
Pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty of Ancient
Egypt. He ruled from 1427 until 1400
BCE. Amenhotep II inherited a vast
kingdom from his father, Thutmose III,
who held it by a few military
campaigns in Syria. However,
Amenhotep II fought much less than
his father. His reign saw the effective
cessation of hostilities between Egypt
and Mitanni and the major kingdoms
vying for Syria's power.
The king often boasted of his
physical prowess in Pharaoh’s
demonstrations of skill chariot driving
for archery and hunting.
Baqet III
The most lifelike of the wrestling scenes
are shown here in the walls of the tomb of
Baqet III.
Baqet III was a governor of the
Oryx province at the end of the
Eleventh Dynasty, a time of internal
conflicts and external wars. With
scenes of various daily life activities
and wars, his well-illustrated tomb is an
invaluable record of this vital period.
There are several murals in the
tomb, including a papyrus gathering
and a desert hunt. The rear wall shows
200 wresting positions in many
registers; the most lifelike of the
wrestling scenes are shown here; they
are very detailed and accurate.
Kheti
Kheti, the son of Baqet III, worked
in the same position as his father. He
was a ruler of a province situated near
the city of El Minya. The paintings of
the walls located in the Eastern and the
Northern sections of the tomb display
Kheti during his hunting trips in the
reign's deserts.
The first of the elaborate wrestling scenes
in Tomb of Kheti
His tomb is decorated with scenes
of hippos, hunting scenes, dancer and
senet players, musicians, and the
offering scenes. The rear wall has
scenes of wine-making and vineyards,
with many of the same scenes painted
inside.
Nebamun
Nebamun was an official scribe
and grain counter at the temple
complex in Thebes about 3,300 years
ago, where the state-god Amun was
worshipped. The Tomb of Nebamun is
located in the Theban Necropolis
situated on the west bank of the Nile at
Thebes (present-day Luxor) in Egypt.
This tomb is a source of some of
the most famous surviving ancient
Egyptian polychrome tomb-painting
scenes. The tomb's plastered walls were
richly decorated with fresco paintings,
depicting Nebamun’s life and activities.
This Tomb-Painting is one of the most
significant paintings from ancient
Egypt to have survived. Nebamun is
shown hunting birds, in a small boat
with his wife Hatshepsut and their
young daughter, in the Nile's marshes.
Nebamun fowling in the marshes, Tomb-
chapel of Nebamun, c. 1350 BCE, 18th
Dynasty, paint on plaster, 83 x 98 cm,
Thebes.
Nakht
Nakht was an official and a noble
who had the title of great scribe and the
astronomer of Amun during the reign
of Thutmose IV (1401-1391 BCE)
during the Eighteenth Dynasty, the first
Dynasty of the New Kingdom.
Part of the Theban Necropolis, on the west
bank of the Nile, opposite to Luxor
On the north side of the tomb's west
wall, Nakht is shown in a further
frequently depicted scene: the fishing
and fowling scene. This type of scene
is also commonly found in the New
Kingdom; in the tomb of Nakht, he is
shown spearing fish and fowl, together
with his family.
World History Bulletin • Vol XXXVI • No. 2 • Page 40

11. Ancient Egyptian sports that later
were also Olympic sports
Egypt was the first country in the world
to organize competitions like the later
Olympic Games, beginning with the
reign of Ramses I. Among the sports
that were played in much the same way
as their later versions are: handball,
hockey, archery, the javelin throw,
equestrian sports, rowing, the marathon,
gymnastics, weightlifting, and
wrestling.
Handball
Handball was well known in
Ancient Egypt, and the ball was made
of leather and stuffed with plant fibers
or hay or made of papyrus plants to be
light and more durable and seldom used
for more than one match. The
inscriptions on the walls of temples and
tombs describe that the Ancient
Egyptians invented and played the
handball sport.
In ancient Egypt, girls were
allowed to play the handball as
described on Saqqara's tombs' walls in
Giza governorate and on the walls of
the tombs of Bani Hassan in Minya
governorate. Another way to play
handball is described as one girl player
carrying her colleague on her back, and
the colleague starts to shoot three small
balls in fast successive moves to the
opposing team. Also, there is an
inscription on the walls of the tomb no.
17 of Bani Hassan that describes two
girls facing each other juggling six
black balls expertly.
Hockey
According
to the
inscriptions
found in the
tombs of Bani
Hassan in
Minya governorate, the ancient
Egyptians practiced hockey. Two
opposing teams played it, and each
player had a bat with a hook-end
similar to current hockey bats, but they
were made of palm leaves. The ball was
made of compressed papyrus and
covered with two pieces of leather;
each one was dyed with color and
formed a semicircle.
Toy balls in British Museum, London.
Archery
The butt end of an
arrow, Middle
Kingdom, Dynasty
11, ca. 2051–2000
BCE, from Egypt,
Upper Egypt,
Thebes, Deir el-
Bahri, Tomb of Khet.
Archery was a
well-known sport in
Ancient Egypt and
was often recorded
on the walls of
temples. These
inscriptions show the
kings’ and princes’
skills in aiming at the target accurately
and their strength in pulling the bow.
Archery competitions were
common like in the twenty-first century
BCE when King Amenhotep II boasted
that he pierced the middle of a thick
brass target with four arrows, and then
he set a prize for anyone who could do
the same.
Javelin Throwing
In ancient Egypt, Javelin throwing
was first linked to hunting, the
inscriptions show how the hunter could
hit his prey with one single throw. The
javelin is a stick with a twisted end, and
its length was different according to the
kind of prey.
Gymnastics
Ancient Egypt is considered to be
the founding place of the gymnastics
vault, as shown by many relief scenes
and inscriptions of the tomb of Baqet
III in Bani Hassan in Minya
governorate.
World History Bulletin • Vol XXXVI • No. 2 • Page 41

12. This redrawing of an inscription
shows four players performing
rhythmic gymnastics in different
positions, close to some positions
practiced in today’s rhythmic
gymnastics. Many inscriptions and
relief scenes suggest that the Egyptian
women were the first to practice
gymnastics accompanied by music.
Gymnastic Dancers in the Festival of the
Valley. Red Chapel of Hatshepsut in
Karnak. XVIII Dynasty.
Equestrian Sports
The drawings engraved on the
Egyptian antiquities recall that the
ancient Egyptians considered
equestrian sports as significant and
took care of the riders and their horses
based on the importance of knights in
armies. Equestrianism became one of
the sports that required practice and
skill. Various equestrian competitions
were held as shown on the walls of the
Temple of Ramses II, including the
chase of prey on horseback, long-
distance races, and fencing.
Marathon Races
Marathon races were of the utmost
importance in ancient Egypt,
particularly during coronation marking
new kings' power. One of the rituals of
these celebrations was to hold a
marathon run by the king around the
temples before spectators to reveal his
physical strength and ability to rule
using his bodily and mental capabilities.
In ancient Egyptian times, running was
prized as a military skill. A stone
inscription has been discovered
recently and well-known with "The
Running Stela of Taharqa" dating to
the twenty-fifth Dynasty,
Stela V of Taharqa’s year 6
685-684 BCE. The stone describes a
footrace organized by king Taharqa
between soldiers from Memphis
through the desert to Fayum and return,
a total distance of ca. 100 km, and how
it was a race run in two segments
separated by a two-hour interval.
Rowing
For six thousand years, the Nile has
been an excellent place to row. First,
rowing was used as a means of
transport in ancient Egypt. The ancient
Egyptians were great believers in the
specialization of skills. They applied
this attention to detail to their rowing,
which they considered to be a sacred
activity (many of the trading ships
belonged either to Pharaoh or were the
temples' property – in either case, the
ships were divine property).
Detail from a wall decoration in the
Mortuary Temple of the female Pharaoh,
Hatshepsut (1507-1458 BCE)
Many ancient Egyptian
inscriptions and writings described the
chief helmsman as the person “who
stands between the two [steering] oars”.
The oars were made of wood with
leather collars. Ancient Egyptians had
people called “order transmitters”
whose duty was to relay their shouts to
the crew to harmonize their rowing to
push the boat forward more steadily
and swiftly- a method still employed in
competitive rowing today.
Weightlifting
In ancient Egypt, lifting weights
was one of the many sports that local
soldiers, athletes, and regular men and
women practiced to improve their
health. One of the most popular lifting
techniques in ancient Egypt was sack
swinging, which could be compared
with the modern-day clean and jerk
Olympic lift. To improve their
physique and as a form of competition,
individuals would lift a sack of sand
with one hand and keep it overhead for
a while.
Wrestling
Wrestling was one of the most
visibly documented sports. The earliest
portrayals of wrestling in Egypt began
during the 5th Dynasty (2400 BCE)
following the discovery of a mastaba
tomb in Saqqara. The tomb belonged to
the Old Kingdom ruler Ptahhotep.
More evidence of wrestling appeared
during the Middle Kingdom (2000-
1780 BCE), with over 400 wrestling
scenes discovered during that period
alone.
World History Bulletin • Vol XXXVI • No. 2 • Page 42

13. Depictions of wrestling during the
11th and 12th Dynasty (2000 BCE) in
the city of Bani Hassan sometimes
showed wrestling scenes filled with
elaborate poses and positions that
covered entire walls. Examples of this
lie in the tombs of the princes of
Antelope District. In the tomb of Baqet
III, the wrestling scenes are depicted
from left to right and followed by color
schemes.
Wrestling depicted in the tomb of Baqet
III
Another example of wrestling can
be seen on the temple of Ramses III at
Medinet Habu, a victorious Egyptian
wrestler standing over his defeated
Nubian foe. The victor is celebrated,
while the defeated opponent is forced
to acknowledge his loss by kissing the
ground before the Pharaoh.
Carved reliefs of Nubian wrestlers in
Temple of Medinet Habu.
The invention of the Jubilee and its
initial celebration
The ancient Egyptians invented the
Heb-Sed festival, which means 'festival
of thirty years'. Heb-Sed in
hieroglyphs means Jubilee, and the
jubilee festival was one of the most
important festivals in ancient Egypt.
The king started off the festival by
offering sacrifices to the gods. He was
then crowned with a white crown to
represent upper Egypt and a red crown
to represent lower Egypt. He would
then wear a short garment that reached
his knees and bare his shoulders. The
garment came with an animal tail. The
Pharaoh then ran a ritual course eight
times: four times as the Pharaoh of
Upper Egypt and another four as the
Pharaoh of Lower Egypt. Upon
completion, he was carried in a
procession to visit the various chapels
of both sections of the Kingdom.
This scene shows the Pharaoh
Hatshepsut (1490-1468) performing the
rites of her 30th-anniversary jubilee,
which included running around a special
area to show her prowess.
The importance of the ritual was
enormous; when running around the
marks, the Pharaoh renewed his
possession of the district he ruled.
Simultaneously, he proved when
running that he was still physically able
to exercise power and protect the
Egyptian people.
The festival was carried out once a
Pharaoh had ruled for 30 years and then
conducted every three years, although
there is evidence of exceptions where
an ill king could hold the Heb-Sed
earlier than usual, but only after the
first thirty years.
Heb-Sed Court. Saqqara, Step Pyramid of
Djoser Egypt.
In the courtyard of the pyramid of
Neterikhet (= Djoser) (3rd dynasty,
reign 2690-2670 BCE) at Saqqara, such
a racecourse as depicted for the run of
the jubilee festival, built from durable
stone, has been preserved. Djoser had
two burials, just like his predecessors.
He had the Step Pyramid, but he also
had another burial. A couple of hundred
yards away, south of the Step Pyramid,
is a mastaba-like burial, not a pyramid.
It is underground and is lined by green
faience tiles, which shows Djoser
running in the Heb-Sed festival.
Conclusion
Many tombs and temples in Egypt
contain numerous paintings showing
the ancient Egyptians practicing sport.
This documentary evidence helps
Egyptologists understand how sports
were played and how their
performances were remembered.
All photographs provided by Author.
1.
Shaw, Ian. Exploring Ancient Egypt.
Oxford University Press, 2003.
World History Bulletin • Vol XXXVI • No. 2 • Page 43

14. 2.
Kamil, Jill. Ancient Egyptians: Life in
the Pyramid Age. American University in
Cairo Press, 1996.
3.
Wilkinson, Richard H. Reading
Egyptian Art Hieroglyphic Guide to
Ancient Egyptian Painting and Sculpture.
Thames & Hudson Ltd; First Edition, 1992.
4.
David O'Connor & Eric Cline,
Amenhotep III: Perspectives on his Reign.
University of Michigan, 1998.
5.
Cottrell, Leonard. The Lost Pharaohs.
Amereon Limited, 1993.
6.
Wilkinson, Toby. A.H. Early Dynastic
Egypt. Routledge, 1999.
7.
Breasted, James Henry. Ancient
Records of Egypt: Historical Documents
from the Earliest Times to the Persian
Conquest. The University of Chicago Press,
1907.
8.
Clayton, Peter. Chronicle of the
Pharaohs - The Reign-By-Reign Record of
the Rulers and Dynasties of Ancient Egypt.
Thames & Hudson Ltd., 1994.
9.
Gardiner, Alan. Egypt of the Pharaohs.
Oxford University Press, 1964.
10.
Baines, John, and Jaromir Malek.
Cultural Atlas of Ancient Egypt. Revised
Edition ed. Oxfordshire, England:
Andromeda Oxford Limited, 2000.
11.
Robins, Gay. The Art of Ancient Egypt.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1997.
12
. Garstang, John. Burial Customs of
Ancient Egypt. London: Archibald
Constable & Co Ltd, 1907.
13.
Kamrin, Janice. The Cosmos of
Khnumhotep II at Beni Hasan. London,
England: Kegan Paul International, 1999.
14.
Bard, Kathryn A. An Introduction to
the archaeology of Ancient Egypt. Oxford,
United Kingdom: Blackwell Ltd, 2008.
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