Baseball: ancient Egypt's favourite ball game(New discoveries in Egypt!)

The Star ^ | April 10 2003 at 05:30AM | Editorial Staff

[vannrox]

Baseball: ancient Egypt's favourite ball game

April 10 2003 at 05:30AM

Charleston, South Carolina - Egyptologist and baseball fanatic Peter Piccione made the connection between pharaohs and fly balls soon after he first viewed hieroglyphics at Hatshepsut's temple in Deir-el-Bahari. There was King Thutmose III - large, strong and the ruler of Egypt in 15th century BC - holding a slender stick that looked like a bat in one hand and a grapefruit-sized ball in the other.

Before the ancient pharaoh, depicted on a wall at the shrine of Hathor, there are two priests, each with a ball in his hand.

"Did the Egyptians invent baseball?" Piccione asks the audience at his College of Charleston lecture."

'Their bat and ball games do show similarities to baseball'

"No, they didn't," he says. "But their bat and ball games do show similarities to baseball, stickball and softball."

Piccione teaches comparative ancient history at the College of Charleston. His speciality is ancient Egyptian sporting activities.

And there was almost no clearer connection for him between the Egyptian ritual of seker-hemat, "batting the ball", and America's national pastime.

"Sport and religion were not mutually exclusive of each other 5 000 years ago, and in many ways, they still are not today," Piccione reckons. - Sapa-AP

[vannrox]

"Sport and religion were not mutually exclusive of each other 5 000 years ago, and in many ways, they still are not today," Piccione reckons.

[xsmommy]

ping for a baseball fan.

[Puppage]

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[xsmommy]

geez, that's quite an artifact! they get that off of a mummy? ; )

[babaloo999]

Maybe they were cricketers. Cue hails of derisive laughter.

[HoustonCurmudgeon]

Ummmm ..... Egypt ..... future Arabs ..... bet the bats were corked .....

[Nachoman]

Any hieroglyphs of people spitting and scratching their crotch? I didn't think so.

[expatpat]

When I lived in England some years back, the kids used to play a game called "Rounders", that had 4 bases, including "Home", with a bat and a ball, and fielders. The same as baseball, but without the organizational infrastructure.

[Oberon]

Ummmm ..... Egypt ..... future Arabs ..... bet the bats were corked .....

Actually, not. The ancient Egyptians were not ethnically Arabic, nor did the Arabs descend from them.

Good point, nonetheless. =]

[Billthedrill]

The truth may now be told - it was the designated hitter rule that cause the downfall of Egyptian civilization.

[SunkenCiv]

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