Nubian Wrestling - Origins Of Martial Arts

The history of ancient sports traditionally begins and ends in the classical arena. Perhaps this is because of the plethora of extant sources about Greek and Roman sports. Behind this narrow focus is the naive assumption that Greek sports were without antecedents in their Mediterranean environment. In the field of Sport History, several ancient historians, in recent years, have made substantial contributions aimed at correcting the existing Greco-Roman insularity.(1)

The most popular athletic contest in the classical world was wrestling. The literary and material culture is replete with evidence illustrating the prevalence of wrestling and the wrestling motif. This study will attempt to demonstrate that wrestling enjoyed a prominence in ancient Nubia, evidenced several centuries before Homer’s wrestling accounts. Ancient iconographic and literary evidence, combined with ethnographical studies, will be used to elucidate the popularity of wrestling among the Nubian people.

Evidence for Wrestling in Ancient Nubia

Wrestling was extremely popular with the ancient Egyptians, judging by the frequency with which the sport appears in Egyptian art.(2) There are a host of wrestling scenes which first appear in the Old Kingdom tomb of Ptahhotep (2300 B.C.) through the time of the New Kingdom (2000-1085 B.C.). Some of the most interesting scenes show foreigners wrestling against the Egyptians. Nubian wrestlers appear at least five times in Egyptian art. Our information about ancient Nubian wrestling is dependent on these glimpses in Egyptian iconography together with a late description found in Heliodorus’ Aithiopica.

This section will analyze the ancient evidence and attempt to reconstruct an ancient Nubian wrestling tradition.

The history of Egypt supplies an ongoing story of economic interaction with Nubia which began in the Old Kingdom and lasted through the Persian Conquest of Egypt in 525 B.C.(3) Initially, the limits of interaction constituted Nubian trade of exotic goods through their own middlemen into the hands of Egyptian merchants. Apparently, the trade was not reciprocal. Egyptian goods are scarce in Nubia throughout the Old Kingdom. There is also evidence that suggests that several of the Old Kingdom Pharaohs sent military expeditions into Nubia. These expeditions increase during the First Intermediate Period (2250-2000 B.C.), as does evidence of Egyptian wares in Nubia. It is not until the Middle Kingdom (2000-1780 B.C.) that there was a concerted Pharaohnic effort to protect Egyptian economic interests to the south.

The frequency of punitive campaigns increased during the New Kingdom (1546-1085 B.C.). Egypt sent expeditions deep into Nubia with the hope of circumventing tribal chiefs, the traditional middlemen in Egypto-Nubian trade. Eventually, the Nubian middlemen were eliminated. The Egyptians divided and controlled Nubia. The New Kingdom Pharaohs demanded the items that they formerly purchased from the Nubians as tribute. Exotic goods, animals, minerals and slaves were presented as tribute to the Pharaoh. The New Kingdom conducted a policy of formal imperial exploitation in Nubia. All of the Nubian wrestling relief's are from the height of this process of Egyptian imperialization during the New Kingdom.





 

Journal of Sport History, Vol. 15, No. 2 (Summer, 1988)

Wrestling in Ancient Nubia

Scott T. Carroll

Assistant Professor

Dept. of History, Gordon College