ANCIENT EGYPT AT THE OLYMPICS
This month we’re celebrating the Olympic Games, often described as the world’s oldest sporting event which began in Greece in 776 BC. And yet Egypt’s own sporting legacy stretches back over two thousand years before this, when the static figures so familiar in art were actually portrayed running, swimming and rowing, lifting weights, playing ball games and holding public competitions of wrestling, archery and chariot racing.
The Sprinting King Den running the sacred race c.2970 BC around stone markers (© BM)
And as the earthly versions of the gods, Egypt’s rulers were regarded as the ultimate athletes. Demonstrating their literal fitness to rule by running the sacred race, this vital part of coronation and jubilee festivals was designed to rev up the king’s physical and magical powers. As early as c.2970 BC, Egypt’s 4th king Den (above) was portrayed running around a track marked by semi-circular stone markers, these same markers part of a 140m long racetrack built in front of Egypt’s first pyramid c.2600 BC, described as ‘the world’s oldest sport’s facility’ which we filmed for the last series (at 1.07 into https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZU2Roq-emxw).
Female pharaoh Hatshepsut mid-sprint in scenes at Karnak Temple c.1460 BC (© iphoto/wrangel)
And as this special race was undertaken by pharaohs male and female down the millennia (above), running was an essential part of the work of royal messengers, soldiers and the bodyguards accompanying royal chariots. Even their training details have survived on a large stone stela set up by Pharaoh Taharqa in 684 BC to commemorate his army’s 62 mile (100km!) race from the capital Memphis to the Fayum Oasis and back. It even reveals that Taharqa ran with his men during the 4 hour outward journey, held during the night when it was cooler, then after a rest at the Fayum the return journey to Memphis was followed by prizes for the winners and a great feast for all.
But as well as tests of speed there were also tests of strength, most famously as part of the aforementioned royal jubilees when pharaoh had to raise up the Maypole-like djed pillar representing the backbone of Osiris, god of resurrection and stability. So by doing this, pharaoh was symbolically resurrecting the god while bringing stability to Egypt, his female relatives acting as cheerleaders whose words and songs were accompanied by encouraging gestures from their backing singers and dancers.
Djed pillar raised by Tutankhamen’s grandfather Amenhotep III c.1354 BC (© ST Smith)
With the most detailed image of the djed pillar event featuring Tutankhamen’s grandfather Amenhotep III (above) in the tomb scenes of one of his officials, the same scenes also show combat sports, from boxing to stick-fighting using the same type of long wooden staffs carried by people of importance as in rural Egypt today. And with multiple ancient versions found in tombs, including those of Tutankhamun, architect Kha and ‘Lady of the House’ Senebtisi, she was also buried with her maces and bow while her virtual contemporary Princess Ita was buried c.1850 BC with her dagger tucked into her belt. Even Nefertiti herself is shown in the pose of a pharaoh wielding her scimitar (below), the recent Olympic success of Egyptian fencer Dr. Nada Hafez (competing while 7 months pregnant) clearly following in the footsteps of her illustrious ancestors.
Nefertiti weilding her scimitar & Egyptian fencer Dr Nada Hafez at the Olympics (© Al Bello)
And certainly there were public sporting events in ancient Egypt, where the crowds not allowed into the holiest parts of the temples could nonetheless assemble in the temple’s outer courtyards to watch events centuries before the Greeks and Romans apparently invented arena sports. With scenes at Medinet Habu c.1180 BC showing opponents crossing their weapons before fighting as part of the annual festival of Montu, god of warfare, combat sports were even performed to honour the dead, with a statue of the great warrior pharaoh Tuthmosis III, who’d then been dead for more than a century, honoured by stick-fighters and wrestlers in the tomb scenes of the official Amenmose (below).
‘Funeral Games’ – combat sports c.1300 BC honouring a statue of the deceased Tuthmosis III (far right) (© MMA)
With no fewer than 219 pairs of wrestlers also found in scenes at Beni Hassan c.1900 BC, interpreted as the same 2 men repeated as a ‘time lapse’ effect to show their match in progress, they’re accompanied by such hieroglyphic sound bites as “I’m grabbing your leg!”, “I’ll make your heart weep and fill with fear!”. International wrestling matches were also party of royal events, when Libyans, Syrians and Nubians took on the home team with all the usual banter - “watch out! I’m grabbing your leg and throwing you on the ground in the presence of pharaoh!”, and “my lord the pharaoh is with me and against you!”. And of course the Egyptians were inevitably shown winning every bout, emerging victorious in the sporting world as well as on the field of battle (even if the truth wasn’t always so….).
Egypt v Libya wrestling match c.1160 BC at Medinet Habu Temple © M.Adan
Yet the Egyptians have always genuinely excelled on water, the annual Nile International Rowing Festival (below left) having attracted teams from Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard and Yale while Egypt’s Emma Benany (below right) is currently the first female head coach of Egypt’s male and female rowing teams https://olympics.com/en/news/emma-benany-redefining-power-control-egypt-rowing-head-coach
Teams at the Nile International Rowing Festival at Luxor Temple (L), with Egypt head rowing coach Emma Benany © E.Watta
Some three and a half thousand years ago, Egypt’s most famous royal athlete Pharaoh Amenhotep II apparently had “arms so strong he did not tire when he grasped the rudder at the stern of the ship with its 200 men”, while as early as the Pyramid Age c.2600 BC, King Snefru was apparently transported by an all-female crew “and the heart of his majesty was glad to see them row”. Fast forward two and a half thousand years we even find the mighty Cleopatra VII on the water too, leading rituals for the war god Montu and his sacred bull (below), which the ancient texts claim “was accompanied by the pharaoh herself, the Lady of the Two Lands and Goddess, who rowed the bull in the sacred boat and all the people and all the priests saw them” (conjuring up some intriguing mental images of the female pharaoh and sacred bull afloat together).
Cleopatra VII (© ImmortalEgypt) & the Buchis Bull (© Lobna Samy)
And of course the Egyptians were very much at home in the water too, some 8,000 years ago swimmers part of prehistoric rock paintings in the aptly named ‘Cave of the Swimmers’ in the once fertile Gilf Kebir. Some of Egypt’s earliest hieroglyphs also include pictograms of little figures doing the front crawl complete with air bubbles (below left), while c.2050 BC the Asyut official Khety reveals that as a boy he’d been allowed to take swimming lessons with the royal children. For swimming was an essential skill for those living on the Nile’s banks, with Egyptian accounts of their battle with the Hittites c.1274 BC revealing how they’d pushed the enemy back north to the Orontes River into which the Hittites were “forced to fling themselves like crocodiles”. Accompanying scenes even show a Hittite prince, unable to swim, having to be rescued and turned upside down to shake out the water he’d swallowed, it’s a sharp contrast to images of the Egyptians themselves, from fishermen diving down to extend their nets to young girls swimming among lotus flowers.
(L) Swimmers on the Irrigation Inspectors’ seal c.2970 BC & (R) swimming girl on bowl found in the tomb of King Psusennes I at Tanis, c.1000 BC (© Cairo Museum)
The same agility is also found in scenes of climbing, in which men stretch upwards to reach the top of tall wooden poles set up in rituals for the fertility god Min, as shown in temple scenes and witnessed by Greek traveller Herodotus touring Egypt c.450 BC. So too a Greek party guest in Memphis, describing the acrobatic skills of “a group who jumped in all directions, gathered together again, climbed one on top of the other with great dexterity, forming pyramids, reaching the ceiling of the room then descending to perform new jumps in constant motion”.
(L) Bull leaping scene at Avaris c.1500 BC & Roman marble statue of an Egyptian crocodile & handler (both © BM)
And with scenes of acrobatics found as early as c.2400 BC along with the long jump and high jump, the Egyptians are even shown bull-leaping as early as c.1900 BC, the bull-leaping frescoes from a palace in northern Egypt c.1500 BC (above left) so similar to the earliest Greek scenes of bull-leaping from Crete that the same artists maybe created both. Some fifteen centuries later the Greek writer Strabo witnessed Egyptians bull-leaping in front of the temple of Memphis, with classical authors also commenting on the local Dendera custom of swimming out into the Nile to dive on to crocodiles, a spectacle so astonishing that both the crocodiles and performers were brought over to Rome to be shown in the arena as early as 58 BC.
Although the public crocodile leaping in Rome never became an Olympic sport(!), ball games certainly are today, ranging from basketball, hockey and football to cricket, golf, volleyball and baseball. And with balls placed in Egyptian tombs by c.3000 BC, they certainly had ball games requiring a stick or bat, from a form of hockey to ‘seker hemat’ aka ‘hitting the ball’. First mentioned in world’s oldest religious writings the Pyramid Texts c.2300 BC when the gods command the dead king to ‘strike the ball in the meadow of the sacred bull’ in order to reach the afterlife, the game seems to have been played in temples in front of a statue of goddess Hathor, the priests acting as fielders while warrior king Tuthmosis III prepares to hit the ball ‘to make her heart glad’ so the goddess in turn grants him eternal life.
Tuthmosis III & priestly fielders playing seker hemat for Hathor with recent re-interpretation (© Wall Street Journal)
Amenhotep III is also shown ‘hitting the ball’ before the goddess, this time in a ritual to blind the evil snake god Apophis whose eye the ball represented. The ball was also lobbed toward the 4 cardinal points to keep them safe too, although such activities could also be fun since later texts reveal that when pharaoh hits the ball, “he enjoys himself like a boy, a youngster, a child”.
And so too with archery, a modern Olympic sport for both men and women as it was in ancient Egypt, from the high priestess shooting arrows at the cardinal points to keep Egypt safe to the unnamed queen firing arrows at her male opponent c.1200 BC, the young pharaoh Tutankhamen is likewise shown as an archer too (below). With his love of archery represented by the archers’ gloves and by the bows found in his tomb in both child and adult sizes, he was like all royals taught archery as a child, his great-great grandfather Amenhotep II shown learning archery from his tutor Min who tells him “Draw your bow to your ears, make strong your arms! Act with force and strength!”. Putting such skills to good use when king both in battle and in public displays when using a bow ‘no-one else could draw’, Amenhotep II is described as “powerful with the bow, who shoots at copper ingots befitting his strength”, his love archery extending into death when his mummified body was found with his beloved long bow beside him.
Tutankhamun shoots arrows from his chariot in scenes on his golden fan © Cairo Museum
Like most pharaohs often portrayed shooting arrows from his chariot (above), these light-weight vehicles, first developed in Syria before spreading to Egypt in the 1500s BC, were pulled by the horses introduced to Egypt around the same time. It was said that the teenage Amenhotep II “while still a young prince, loved his horses. He was taught about training them & became an expert”. Amenhotep’s son, next king Tuthmosis IV, is also described “enjoying himself on the desert at Memphis, shooting at targets and hunting lions as he flew along in his chariot, with horses swifter than the wind”. And as tests with replica chariots have reached heady speeds up to 24 mph(!), a purpose-made racetrack has also been identified beside the Malkata palace of Amenhotep III, whose successors Akhenaten and Nefertiti created roads wide enough for their own chariots at their new city Amarna where the couple are each shown driving their own chariots. So too do their small daughters, with such family vehicles likely among the 6 buried in the tomb of next king Tutankhamen, including one naming both Tutankhamen and his queen Ankhesenamen.
Nefertiti & daughters in their chariots (© Egypt Exploration Society) with a ‘colourful’ modern interpretation (© Look & Learn)
By the C.6th BC, Egypt’s Pharaoh Ahmose II is described riding around on horseback by the Greek writer Herodotus whose fellow Greeks were employed as mercenaries by Ahmose and his dynasty. Ahmose even married a Greek princess, sending rich gifts to the gods of Greece and even funding the rebuilding of part of the temple of Delphi, by then one of the venues for the Olympic Games which had begun as a religious event in 776 BC. Thereafter the games were held every year at four sites in rotation, at Delphi then at Corinth, Nemea and at Olympia itself, the site by which all games became known and whose hippodrome horse racetrack was first identified and studied in 1814 by John Spencer Stanhope of Barnsley’s Cannon Hall.
Hippodrome racetrack at Olympia on left, discovered by Barnsley’s John Spencer Stanhope © Hellenic Ministry of Culture & Sports
It’s also a little-known fact that a Greek delegation was sent to Egypt during the reign of one of Ahmose II’s predecessors Psamtik II (595-589 BC) in order to get the Egyptians’ opinion on Olympic rules, since as the Greeks themselves explained, “the Egyptians were the wisest of all people” (Herodotus’ Histories II.160). And although the Olympic Games were only open to those of Greek descent, this included the northern Greek rulers of Macedonia, whose king Alexander I apparently won the 200m footrace, Archelaus (412-399 BC) winning the four-horse chariot race at Olympia and at Delphi, and the horses of Philip II victorious at Olympia in 356 BC at the same moment his famous son Alexander the Great was born.
Then after Alexander was crowned pharaoh of Egypt in 332 BC, succeeded by his likely half-brother Ptolemy I initiating Egypt’s 300 year-long Ptolemaic dynasty, these pharaohs of Egypt, being Greek by descent, could therefore take part in the Olympic Games too. And thanks to the Ptolemies’ lavish state funding, a third of all winners in the oldest Olympic event, the sprint race, were soon Egyptian, as were many in the pentathlon, wrestling & boxing. Yet by drawing on their pharaonic legacy, the Ptolemies excelled most in chariot racing, with Ptolemy I achieving victory as did his queen Berenike I and their children Ptolemy II and Arsinoe II, who set up their victory statues facing the great Temple of Zeus and Hera at Olympia to emphasise a shared divinity.
Chariot champion & female pharaoh Berenike II (© Altes Museum Berlin/Sailko) & chariot race on red figure Greek vase (© Bibliotheque du Musée d'Arts Décoratifs)
Arsinoe II excelled even further when her chariot team won all three chariot races in a single day in 272 BC, her successor and fellow female pharaoh Berenike II (258–246 BC) raising her own horses which won almost every chariot event in the Greek games, ‘The Victory of Berenice’ the first poem ever written to honour a woman’s achievement in a sporting event. Indeed, so famous were the Ptolemies for their horses that their statues - on horseback - were set up on the Acropolis in Athens, with even that most famous female pharaoh Cleopatra VII having links to this part of the sporting world. Born in 69 BC around the same time the horses of her father Ptolemy XII had again won victory at the Greek games, Cleopatra became a skilled horsewoman, riding around on horseback to oversee military preparations against the Romans trying to take Egypt from her. And when they finally succeeded in 30 BC, the loot they took back to Rome included one of many ancient obelisks, re-erected at the centre of Rome’s most famous horse racetrack the Circus Maximus as unwitting testament to Egypt’s 5000 year sporting legacy.
Reconstruction of the Egyptian obelisk of Seti I re-erected in Rome’s Circus Maximus (© Technicolour Creative Studios/Paramount/MGM)
Yet all too often dismissed by the modern world which only traces sport as far back as the Olympics of ancient Greece, the Greeks themselves admitted they’d learned much from Egypt, whose huge contribution to sporting history really should be far better known.
