Sport

These paintings date back to around 15,300

years ago, that is during the Upper Paleolithic Age. Similar cave paintings

dating back to 7000 BC, depicting wrestling, have also been found in Mongolia.

Egyptian monuments dating back to 2000 BC, which depict fishing, swimming,

rowing, athletics, wrestling, weightlifting, archery, and even different sorts

of ball games, were discovered.

Though sports

have been around for a long time, many modern sports that we see today, like

basketball, American football, and ice hockey, developed only within the last

couple of centuries. Many ancient sports are still played today but have

transformed dramatically. Boxing dates to 3000 BC in Egypt, but it was quite

different from what we see today.

It is hard to trace back the exact origin of

sports, but it is evident that human activities like travelling and military

training influenced its development. Boxing and wrestling are some of the

earliest sports to be played, but also other ancient sports including

footraces, horse riding, chariot racing, javelin throws, archery, etc. Even

soccer has its origins from the Chinese military training dating back to the

2nd century BCE.

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1 – What does

BC mean in 7000BC ?

2 – When were most major modern team sports born ?