athletic of the kings, having been trained since childhood in
many athletic pursuits, Amenhotep II claimed not only to
have pierced four copper targets “as thick as a man’s palm”
while riding full-speed in a chariot but to have cleaved each
target in two.
Wrestling appears in Egyptian art from the First Dynasty
(ca. 2920–ca. 2770 b.c.e.) onward. During the Old Kingdom
(ca. 2575–ca. 2134 b.c.e.) servant statues—statues buried with
the dead to serve and entertain them in the aft erlife—oft en
depicted wrestlers. Naked boys who are wrestling are carved
in relief in the tomb of Ptahhotep (a philosopher and high
government offi cial in the 24th century b.c.e.) at Saqqara. Th e
most famous scenes of ancient Egyptian wrestling come from
the Twelft h Dynasty (ca. 1991–ca. 1783 b.c.e.) tombs at Beni
Hasan, which house more than 100 depictions of wrestlers.
Th ere is debate as to whether these fi gures are of recreational
wrestlers or simply Egyptians fi ghting each other in one of
the many civil confl icts of that time. However, at nearby Ber-
sheh similar art clearly depicts sports wrestlers, as they are
shown with a referee. During the New Kingdom (1550–1070
b.c.e.) wrestling became incorporated into royal ceremonies
in which Egyptians wrestled foreign opponents. Art at Medi-
net Habu portrays stick fi ghting as another part of these com-
petitions, with the fi ghters wearing shields on their forearms
and padding on their faces.
Ancient Egyptians also played ball sports, and original
balls from some of these games have survived. Th ey were gen-
erally made by sewing a leather cover around a fi lling of clay
or tightly packed straw, hair, papyrus, palm leaves, or yarn. In
Tw e l ft h Dynasty tombs women are shown juggling balls and
throwing them back and forth, sometimes while sitting on
the shoulders of other people. Some Egyptologists have read
mythological meaning into the juggling games, but this expla-
nation is speculative and not universally accepted. Th ere are a
few examples, however, of balls being used ceremonially and
magically to stave off chaos. For example, during the Late Pe-
riod (ca. 712–332 b.c.e.) the king would hit a ball with a stick
as if he were striking the eye of Apophis (the god of evil and
darkness), and in the edifi ce of Taharqa at Karnak the king is
shown throwing four balls, each toward one of the four car-
dinal points of the compass. Apart from royal sports activity
tomb art at Beni Hasan shows ancient Egyptians using a ball
and long sticks in a manner that resembles fi eld hockey.
In addition to juggling, ancient Egyptian art portrays
women dancing and contorting in many diff erent poses in
gymnastic activity. For example, a painting from 2000 b.c.e.
shows one woman doing a full backbend and another doing a
front handspring or front walkover. Further, at Beni Hassan
there are examples of ancient Egyptians holding certain yogic
positions, including one in a headstand. Ancient Egyptians
also had a unique form of weightlift ing: Th ey used bags full
of sand that could be raised with one hand, much like dumb-
bells, to work their arm muscles.
Because most ancient Egyptians lived near water—along
the Nile and its tributaries, as well as the Red Sea and Medi-terranean—it seems probable that many people knew how to
swim. Th e Biography of Khety, from the Eleventh Dynasty (ca.
2040–1991 b.c.e.), mentions swimming lessons given to the
royal children. Both the Old Kingdom and the Middle King-
dom (ca. 2040–1640 b.c.e.) provide many carved depictions
of men, women, and children fi shing and hunting birds with
throw sticks along rivers, and in some of these scenes men on
papyrus raft s on the water are trying to push each other over-
board with poles. Although there is no direct evidence of boat
races, they must have occurred, as boating was part of daily
life for people living on the Nile. Further, in the Late Egyptian
text Th e Contendings of Horus and Seth the gods Horus and
Seth compete against each other in a boat race, indicating that
there must have been real-life precedents for such events.
Game pieces from ancient Egypt survive to this day.
Egyptologists have identifi ed four board games, but it is likely
that more existed. Th e most popular was senet, played from
the very earliest times all the way down to the Roman con-
quest. Besides recreational value, it had magical and religious
signifi cance: A person had to play a game of senet in the aft er-
life in order to proceed toward eternal happiness and peace.
Th us, in eff ect, one played senet for one’s life. Th e game ap-
pears in the Egyptian Book of the Dead, and a scene of the
queen playing it for her life is beautifully painted in vibrant
colors in the Tomb of Nefertari in the Valley of the Queens
at Luxor. Senet was played by two players on a rectangular
board of 30 squares (10 by 3). Each player had seven pieces,
and fl at two-sided dice sticks determined the moves that
could be made. Much as in checkers, a player could jump the
opponent’s pieces to remove them and reach the opposite end
of the board.
Another game, men (from the word for “endurance”),
was contested by two players on a long narrow board divided
into 13 or more sections. Not much is known about this game,
but it seems that each player controlled fi ve pieces and moved
them according to throws of stick dice as in senet. Aft er men
disappeared at the start of the Old Kingdom, a somewhat
similar game played with pegs became popular and lasted for
2,000 years. Players moved carved pegs on boards that had
two tracks of 30 holes each. It is not known whether the peg
game developed from men or was something new, perhaps
imported from the Near East.
In the Old Kingdom tomb of the physician and scribe
Hesy-Ra there is a depiction of a game called mehen, “serpent,”
named for the serpent god Mehen, who protects the sun as it
sails across the sky. Th e board for the game is in the shape of a
coiled snake and divided into six compartments, each holding
six marbles of one color and a lion-shaped piece. In the tomb
of King Reshepses at Saqqara four people are shown playing.
Th e game, however, disappeared sometime around 2000 b.c.e.,
possibly because worship of the serpent god Mehen died out.
A game called “20 squares” (for the number of squares on the
board) became popular in the Seventeenth Dynasty (ca. 1640–
1550 b.c.e.) and may have been introduced by the Hyksos. It
was played by two people, each using fi ve pieces.sports and recreation: Egypt 10490895-1194_Soc&Culturev4(s-z).i1049 1049 10/10/07 2:30:53 PM