Ancient Egyptian Champions

[Marchegiano]

I was looking around, being inspired by the HW history bios series, I thought I might do some farther back bios, pick up at Sully and go backward, at least to Yankee.

Anyway, while I was looking around deciding whether I'd bother with the ancient bios I noticed quite often Egypt gets spoken about when anything ancient comes up and there seems to be some confusion, or an assumption maybe, that there were Egyptian champions or some form or another.


In Egypt, and this is true for all the forms of ancient African boxing I know of, boxing is kind of a team sport.

You count the winners from the tribes or cities participating and announce the winning team. In Egypt's case; cities.

There's literally no record of who did the winning, just stuff like Nubt had three victories while Abu and Swenett had two. The only champion one can get from this is Nubt, the city.

If y'all want I can crack a book and give an exact excerpt.

Beyond a lack of champions Egyptian boxing can hardly be considered a sport. Pharaoh decided who would win and lose and for the most part boxing and wrestling were used for propaganda.

Pharaoh himself is the greatest boxer, wrestler, and archer, in ancient Egypt. To record a champion of any kind is heresy. A lot of their stories center around a foreign braggart who was successful enough to match with the Pharaoh himself. Of course Pharaoh always wins.

It isn't until the Hellenisation of Egypt the Egyptians started boxing as sport rather than propaganda-pantomime.

So even if we did have record of the names of the men who did the winning, so what, the format prevents the winners from fighting one another, and, the fights are fixed anyway.

The first man coming from Egypt that could possibly be called a champion is Cleoxenus of Alexandria - 240 BC. Well into the Hellenism of Egypt the Egyptians produce an Olympian.

Cleoxenus won at Olympia as "Atraumatistos" or without injury

At the time a lot of money was invested in the promotion of Greek games and sport in Egypt. The Hellenistic hippodrome-stadion complex in the centre of Alexandria was constructed.

Herakleides of Alexandria - 93 AD would repeat the feat, but of course by 93 we are into the Roman period, this man fought and survived battles using cestus. He's mummified too.

Horus of Egypt - 364 AD. You'd think after so many years of boxing history record keeping would get better not worse.

Horus was originally a student of rhetoric, then he became a boxer, a champion, then a cynic philosopher. His father's name was Valens, where he was born? "Somewhere in Egypt"

Weird enough, if you look up " ancient egyptian boxers" on wiki Horus is all that comes up:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catego...gyptian_boxers

For more on ancient Egyptian boxers I'd need to crack a book, but, honestly, there's not much more to say.


It is easy to assume given the Panhellenic Games are greek most champions would be greek, but actually, most champions come from modern day Turkey.

There few Egyptians because Egypt never really took to the sport not because the Greeks were unfair.

[billeau2]

I was looking around, being inspired by the HW history bios series, I thought I might do some farther back bios, pick up at Sully and go backward, at least to Yankee.

Anyway, while I was looking around deciding whether I'd bother with the ancient bios I noticed quite often Egypt gets spoken about when anything ancient comes up and there seems to be some confusion, or an assumption maybe, that there were Egyptian champions or some form or another.


In Egypt, and this is true for all the forms of ancient African boxing I know of, boxing is kind of a team sport.

You count the winners from the tribes or cities participating and announce the winning team. In Egypt's case; cities.

There's literally no record of who did the winning, just stuff like Nubt had three victories while Abu and Swenett had two. The only champion one can get from this is Nubt, the city.

If y'all want I can crack a book and give an exact excerpt.

Beyond a lack of champions Egyptian boxing can hardly be considered a sport. Pharaoh decided who would win and lose and for the most part boxing and wrestling were used for propaganda.

Pharaoh himself is the greatest boxer, wrestler, and archer, in ancient Egypt. To record a champion of any kind is heresy. A lot of their stories center around a foreign braggart who was successful enough to match with the Pharaoh himself. Of course Pharaoh always wins.

It isn't until the Hellenisation of Egypt the Egyptians started boxing as sport rather than propaganda-pantomime.

So even if we did have record of the names of the men who did the winning, so what, the format prevents the winners from fighting one another, and, the fights are fixed anyway.

The first man coming from Egypt that could possibly be called a champion is Cleoxenus of Alexandria - 240 BC. Well into the Hellenism of Egypt the Egyptians produce an Olympian.

Cleoxenus won at Olympia as "Atraumatistos" or without injury

At the time a lot of money was invested in the promotion of Greek games and sport in Egypt. The Hellenistic hippodrome-stadion complex in the centre of Alexandria was constructed.

Herakleides of Alexandria - 93 AD would repeat the feat, but of course by 93 we are into the Roman period, this man fought and survived battles using cestus. He's mummified too.

Horus of Egypt - 364 AD. You'd think after so many years of boxing history record keeping would get better not worse.

Horus was originally a student of rhetoric, then he became a boxer, a champion, then a cynic philosopher. His father's name was Valens, where he was born? "Somewhere in Egypt"

Weird enough, if you look up " ancient egyptian boxers" on wiki Horus is all that comes up:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catego...gyptian_boxers

For more on ancient Egyptian boxers I'd need to crack a book, but, honestly, there's not much more to say.


It is easy to assume given the Panhellenic Games are greek most champions would be greek, but actually, most champions come from modern day Turkey.

There few Egyptians because Egypt never really took to the sport not because the Greeks were unfair.

M

It seems to me what you are running into is the schism between civilian and military martial arts. Many cultures have a distinct way that each of these arts come to be. So for example, if we look at SouthEast Asia, a country that has incredible blade arts, there is no distinction made. The reason for this is they were tribal and men in a tribe learned the arts, it was ubiquitious.

On the other hand, China, Japan and feudal Europe had a system of arts that came out of military and civilian scenarios. Take China: a root art like Tai Chi was fundamental and was originally used on the battle fields. Eventually the art was used by civilians and forgotten by the military. The Shao Lin temple was known primarily for external systems, and staff work. there are many records of the military in China going to observe the temple, to see if the staff work is something good... usually they were not impressed.

When fighting became something that the civilian base had to do, civilian arts were created and a natural extension of these arts is competition. You and I know that it makes no difference about how violent the art is... Rough and Tumble is quite violent, yet it was essentially used by a civilian population as a form of social cohesiveness via competition based on fighting for social status. After the Unification of Japan, sword arts became about drawing the weapon, because fights took place in small places where people socialized.

So in Egypt, what we see is a society, much like other Pyrmid civilizations, where martial arts are used primarily professionally. Professional warrior caste members, soldgers, used boxing and wrestling, not really anyone else. In Tibet we see priests who held a thunderbolt Dharma charm (a Dhorima) that had a tapered end and this was self defense for them. In China, bandits made is so, and in Japan, bandits made it so, that Monks has to be martial artists to survive.

My sense is that you will run into this dichotomy when looking for Egyptian ideas about boxing.

[Rusty Tromboni]

This is amazing.


Most guys will do ANYTHING to get laid.


But you are converted to doing anyhting to maintain your ******ity!!!!!



I have never been so impressed. There's probably a picture of you hanging up in ever Convent around the world.

[Marchegiano]

M

It seems to me what you are running into is the schism between civilian and military martial arts. Many cultures have a distinct way that each of these arts come to be. So for example, if we look at SouthEast Asia, a country that has incredible blade arts, there is no distinction made. The reason for this is they were tribal and men in a tribe learned the arts, it was ubiquitious.

On the other hand, China, Japan and feudal Europe had a system of arts that came out of military and civilian scenarios. Take China: a root art like Tai Chi was fundamental and was originally used on the battle fields. Eventually the art was used by civilians and forgotten by the military. The Shao Lin temple was known primarily for external systems, and staff work. there are many records of the military in China going to observe the temple, to see if the staff work is something good... usually they were not impressed.

When fighting became something that the civilian base had to do, civilian arts were created and a natural extension of these arts is competition. You and I know that it makes no difference about how violent the art is... Rough and Tumble is quite violent, yet it was essentially used by a civilian population as a form of social cohesiveness via competition based on fighting for social status. After the Unification of Japan, sword arts became about drawing the weapon, because fights took place in small places where people socialized.

So in Egypt, what we see is a society, much like other Pyrmid civilizations, where martial arts are used primarily professionally. Professional warrior caste members, soldgers, used boxing and wrestling, not really anyone else. In Tibet we see priests who held a thunderbolt Dharma charm (a Dhorima) that had a tapered end and this was self defense for them. In China, bandits made is so, and in Japan, bandits made it so, that Monks has to be martial artists to survive.

My sense is that you will run into this dichotomy when looking for Egyptian ideas about boxing.

I'm not sure if it's civilian-military or more in how the culture shows its martial arts

My time with TMA was very short and not very close, from 6-15 I lived near an uncle who is a shotokan of some very high esteem, yes he has black belts but there's more to it I've well forgotten.

Anyway, I may misunderstand the purpose of a demo, but, I think to the Egyptians the way they display their art is by demo not contest.


When the Greeks ask who is the champion the Egyptians seem confused and tell them there were X grand winners this year, from Y places. When the greeks ask who were the champions last year they say there were none, and when the Greeks inquire the two years back the Egyptians had forgotten.


There's plenty of emphasis on art and not much on contest....seems like a demo to me, right?

I watched my uncle demo with loads and loads of partners, it's cool, like a live Kung Fu flick, but, a contest it isn't...... well except for them demo contests but you know what I mean. It's not a combat sport, it's demonstrating a martial art.



That said, the divide between citizen and soldier. Generalization, but it's mostly true, Africans didn't really care about boxing so it's difficult for me to speak to, but, every Egyptian boy can rassle and stick fight.

I'd have to look more directly, if it's even possible, at the surf or whatever it is, the Egyptian imperial system, to see if there was anything that prevented a good performer who was not a soldier, just a performer, from performing at any level.

I don't know that Pharaoh only watched soldiers, I think Pharaoh would watch the best performers known to his lands, soldier or no.


Their history is very interesting, most old cultures are, but sport boxing is not what they're doing. The purpose isn't to dissuade an interest in Egypt, it's to inform there will never be a list of Egyptian champions, those names are not recorded, never were, because Egypt was more community driven and less individualistic.


If you ask Greeks to perform some boxing for you, they organize a fight and the boxers box, there is a winner and a loser and the winner advances until he is alone.

If you ask the Egyptians they put on a few fights, when you ask who is the winner, they list everyone who won their fight.

I think both cultures are essentially saying " Behold our are and tremble at our prowess" with the main different being the Greeks point to an individual as an example of Greece where as the Egyptians point to an entire community as an example of Egypt.

You get to see them fight, but, the purpose for both men is to put over the art not themselves. The purpose of the Greeks is definitely some chest pounding I am the man stuff.


I'd be interested in your take.

[billeau2]

I'm not sure if it's civilian-military or more in how the culture shows its martial arts

My time with TMA was very short and not very close, from 6-15 I lived near an uncle who is a shotokan of some very high esteem, yes he has black belts but there's more to it I've well forgotten.

Anyway, I may misunderstand the purpose of a demo, but, I think to the Egyptians the way they display their art is by demo not contest.


When the Greeks ask who is the champion the Egyptians seem confused and tell them there were X grand winners this year, from Y places. When the greeks ask who were the champions last year they say there were none, and when the Greeks inquire the two years back the Egyptians had forgotten.


There's plenty of emphasis on art and not much on contest....seems like a demo to me, right?

I watched my uncle demo with loads and loads of partners, it's cool, like a live Kung Fu flick, but, a contest it isn't...... well except for them demo contests but you know what I mean. It's not a combat sport, it's demonstrating a martial art.



That said, the divide between citizen and soldier. Generalization, but it's mostly true, Africans didn't really care about boxing so it's difficult for me to speak to, but, every Egyptian boy can rassle and stick fight.

I'd have to look more directly, if it's even possible, at the surf or whatever it is, the Egyptian imperial system, to see if there was anything that prevented a good performer who was not a soldier, just a performer, from performing at any level.

I don't know that Pharaoh only watched soldiers, I think Pharaoh would watch the best performers known to his lands, soldier or no.


Their history is very interesting, most old cultures are, but sport boxing is not what they're doing. The purpose isn't to dissuade an interest in Egypt, it's to inform there will never be a list of Egyptian champions, those names are not recorded, never were, because Egypt was more community driven and less individualistic.


If you ask Greeks to perform some boxing for you, they organize a fight and the boxers box, there is a winner and a loser and the winner advances until he is alone.

If you ask the Egyptians they put on a few fights, when you ask who is the winner, they list everyone who won their fight.

I think both cultures are essentially saying " Behold our are and tremble at our prowess" with the main different being the Greeks point to an individual as an example of Greece where as the Egyptians point to an entire community as an example of Egypt.

You get to see them fight, but, the purpose for both men is to put over the art not themselves. The purpose of the Greeks is definitely some chest pounding I am the man stuff.


I'd be interested in your take.

My take is that when a martial art comes out of military driven enterprises it has the following characteristics:

1) Because it usually is part of a system incorporating weapons, it is taught, shown and explained in terms of the many. So when we see Japanese Military, ancient arts, known as the KoRyu, they don't do anything that is not choreographed. Most of the art is teaching basic principles handling things that are unweildy...swords, Haliberds, chained weapons, sticks... the unarmed arts are a part of that.

The idea of the art is to prepare the most to be effective, so winning would be the side that prevails. The higher practicioners of the art teach, and eventually one will learn these aspects with time. But there is no single victor, only the head of the system.

2) In this format, fighters are bred in the system to fight. But this is not an important feature of the art. As a matter of fact, there is a dialectic which makes the fighter, the least important part of the art...Your fighters winning does not make a military order effective, it does not develop the technical skills allowing your men to leave the battle field and live to spread the art.

Grappling is the best example of this: two statements about Takanuchi Ryu in this case: The art focused at the highest levels, on using the shorter sword known as the Kadachi, to kill on the battle field. So... One was expected to get close to an important target to kill.

A grapple was to the death because with armour, he who fell first, would be mounted, his helmet turned to expose the throat, and the throat slit, his head taken... Out of this when you see Judo? ever see a sacrifice throw? you see them on tv sometimes, James Kirk lol, where you go down and shoot the other man over at the last minute... this comes from skillful grappling, letting the other man think you are going down, only to reverse the throw.. Judo can now be done as a contest!

To continue: the oldest art and only fully indiginous Japanese art is SUmo. In Sumo there is no sacrifice throws. Aside from that there are many components of the art in Judo and even AikiJutsu. Even Kendo, where one can have a contest with swords, originally incorporated grappling.

My point in this example is to show how a military basis can eventually produce civilian arts that are about a champion...A judo champion, a Sumo champion, a karate champion (tournament).

Egypt had a caste system where the Pharoah and the Priests had much of the education. The military was a necessary evil to carry out conquests. Arts were perfunctory, they were to guarantee military conquest for the gods, being that the Pharoah was gods on earth lol. In some of the Afro-Hamitic cultures the Egyptians encountered they had a less rigid system of martial arts and wrestling and boxing, of a sort were practiced. So...no doubt this was picked up by the Egyptian military and brought home. As the military gained more status as the middle class, no doubt this also increased competition in the martial arts at home...the Middle class, being less stratisfied, more innovative always is the group to change and innovate things.

Just like in Japan, where after the Samurai were killed off and many of the finest Ko Ryu system heads, their fighters, etc were killed off, a new group of middle class Japanese citizens started to train in the Budo arts. Kano proved their superiority (being sarcastic) when he challenged the depleted military systems to a series of contests in Tokyo in the police academy...of course he had all the young bucks...and had to make a showing that Western concepts of competition were superior...and he easily won these contests which were pathetic.

So I would imagine that in Egypt they had not yet developed a civilian corpus of martial sports that people could use for self development...Remember that is what it means to have a champion, it is to show a person who has developed to the apex of perfection using the art to do so.

Lets also remember something else here: Germany, the last European area to break from Feudalism, always had a full array of Hussian and other soldgers of fortune. Why? because these men were part of a military order familiar with the use of arms... Europe was initially no different than the rest of the world... People who has the money and other means, learned arms, and eventually how to duel. Dueling was an upperclass way of maintaining the order... one "championed" the order by defeating a challenge in a fair contest... Sound familiar?

The United States was an exception. Enterprises like "Rough and tumble" and boxing from European shores, came here and were used by all relatively quickly. Boxing originally was taught in mens clubs for those with means, but soon, in the streets of the cities...here, in europe, the poorer classes were trained. Boxing, like Savate in Marseilles, did not take much equipment. In Savate (Old shoe) a good pair of boots, a tough and mean teacher, and one could fight for a name as a thief, a G! In the United States, Civil War vets and tough underclass scot Irish could bite each other off at the extremities... The Welsh would kick each other in the shins, in similar fashion to show who was boss.

So you can see that class is the real variable here. I believe we have to list the military class as the harbinger, even when folk arts existed... A champion is in reality the winner, the one who has advocated for a cause (championed it) and come out on top. An army does the same essential thing, with many, and with weapons and with a set of arts that are not about competition because the art either survives the battle field, or it does not.

Hope this helps!

[QueensburyRules]

- -Idi Amin held all the records in Uganda with some world records and some videotaped.

They gone the way of the Greb tapes?

[Marchegiano]

- -Idi Amin held all the records in Uganda with some world records and some videotaped.

They gone the way of the Greb tapes?

There's a fella on ESB who claims he has them actually.

[billeau2]

- -Idi Amin held all the records in Uganda with some world records and some videotaped.

They gone the way of the Greb tapes?