Bronze Age Predecessors
Sport may have come about as a facet of human society as far back as early prehistory because it served as good training for this, far more high stakes, type of activity.
What is hunting?
Homeric sport most frequently took place in the context of this sort of social event.
What is a funeral?
This elaborately decorated building would have been a rather large reminder of the identity of the religious patron of the ancient Olympics.
What is the Temple of Olympian Zeus?
Athletes who won at ancient Panhellenic sacred games received this material reward.
What is a vegetal wreath?
This is the meaning of the Greek word athlon.
In addition to entertainment, it is likely that facilitating these social processes was one of the main purposes of sport in Bronze Age Crete.
What are liminal rites for young people?
The most elaborate description of sport in Homer's Iliad focuses on this contest.
What is the chariot race?
Officials from this otherwise obscure Greek city-state administered affairs at ancient Olympia.
What is Elis?
This is the oldest documented event in the ancient Olympic Games.
What is the stadion race?
A story about the origins of the ancient Olympics includes a king called Oinomaos, who challenged suitors to a chariot race with the hand of this woman, his daughter, in marriage on the line.
Who is Hippodamaia?
Near Eastern Kings of the Late Bronze Age probably participated most often in this type of 'sport'.
What are staged wild beast hunts?
This hunka hunka Homeric hero was the main official presiding over the funeral games of Patroklos.
Who is Achilles?
The ancient Olympics took place in this month of the year.
What is August?
The punishment for married women who were caught in attendance at the ancient Olympic games was this.
The Greek word kudos can roughly be translated as this.
What is divinely-sanctioned glory?
Images adorning this class of small, personal elite object provide iconographic evidence for reconstructing sport in the Bronze Age Aegean.
What are gold signet rings?
What is a discus?
The sporting facilities at ancient Olympia included a stadium for footraces, a hippodrome for horse-racing, and a special arena for heavy events described by this Ancient Greek word.
What is a palaestra?
This was the approximate length of the ancient footrace called the dolichos.
What is 4800 meters?
The word gymnasium literally means this in Ancient Greek.
What is naked place?
What is the name of the ritual stone vessel that preserves one of the most complex and informative depictions of combat sports from the Minoan Bronze Age?
What is the boxer rhyton?
The funeral games of Patroklos are cut short when this basileus enters the javelin throwing contest.
Who is Agamemnon?
Hundreds of well-preserved examples of this type of artifact were recovered from wells at ancient Olympia, providing evidence of the site's likely use as a military oracle in the 7th century BCE.
What are bronze helmets?
To be eligible for competition, athletes at the ancient Olympics had to spend this amount of time training at Elis prior to the quadrennial games.
What is one month?
Small amounts of an Olympic victor's oily, dirty, sweat were collected for sale from ancient gymnasia; the commodityy was called this in Ancient Greek.
What is gloios.