Where Did Boxing Originate From?

[ShoulderRoll]

Let me add to that last one because it seems like I'm just giving you the brush off. Like i'm privy to some secrete knowledge I won't share or some such. I'm just a reader like you, I don't know **** actually.

Michael B Poliakoff's Competition, Violence, and Culture. Combat Sport in the Ancient Word would be the book I learned this from.

I've tried to find the pic online but all I'm getting is some armorless 1700 BC fresco. The Minoan boxer is fully armored. Helmeted, breast, the whole nine.

If you find that imagine and date it and it turns out Mike and I are wrong that's good research bud, but, just telling me no this culture is older....I don't think you got the point I made.

Is it this one?


The “Boxing Boys,” fresco from Thera (modern-day Santorini), c.
1600 B.C.E.
Source: The Thera Foundation at www.therafoundation.org/ akrotiri/buildingbeta/boxingboysroombeta1southwall/view.

If so it's from 1500 years AFTER the Nintu Temple carving. Which was found in a region near the Tigris river.

[billeau2]

Keep digging bubba. There's a reason why I named the geographic location and not the nation

See what I mean how the connection is perceived? You could explain it a million times... and it wouldn't matter. Unless someone is willing to read your posts carefully, understand your point, they will find an example of fist fighting in ancient suba wubba and say "see boxing exhausted before the Greeks" lol.

You are alas a lot more tolerant about it than I am... lol.

[Marchegiano]

See what I mean how the connection is perceived? You could explain it a million times... and it wouldn't matter. Unless someone is willing to read your posts carefully, understand your point, they will find an example of fist fighting in ancient suba wubba and say "see boxing exhausted before the Greeks" lol.

You are alas a lot more tolerant about it than I am... lol.

Yes, I see what you mean.

Thing is, he's motivated to find something older, and I'm curious. If it's out there a man on a mission will find it.

[Marchegiano]

Is it this one?


The “Boxing Boys,” fresco from Thera (modern-day Santorini), c.
1600 B.C.E.
Source: The Thera Foundation at www.therafoundation.org/ akrotiri/buildingbeta/boxingboysroombeta1southwall/view.

If so it's from 1500 years AFTER the Nintu Temple carving. Which was found in a region near the Tigris river.

That's the fresco....you can tell by it being labeled fresco and the total lack of armor. Are you reading my posts or just skimming?

[billeau2]

Is it this one?


The “Boxing Boys,” fresco from Thera (modern-day Santorini), c.
1600 B.C.E.
Source: The Thera Foundation at www.therafoundation.org/ akrotiri/buildingbeta/boxingboysroombeta1southwall/view.

If so it's from 1500 years AFTER the Nintu Temple carving. Which was found in a region near the Tigris river.

Shoulder his point is not that fist fighting did not exist before the Greeks... His point is that when we take the development of boxing in Greece, the cultural perspective that birthed the ideals, perhaps the techniques, and the connection to later forms of fighting with fists all the way up to present day, there are distinct lines of transmission.

Hes explained this by citing the ethic implied in personal victory, the organization of competition with rules and procedures geared towards competition, similarities in rules and procedures, etc.

He may be right, or wrong, but that is the argument that M has substantiated with plenty of data.

Egyptian martial arts are unknown. We do not have a record of them. Aztec martial arts are another great example... Aztec warriors were expected to take up to six captives home for sacrifice...Must have been one heck of a fighting system! alas...aside from a priest describing an Aztec demonstrating a technique with the Obsidian blade against another individual...we have no information about these fighting systems.

What this means is that we cannot trace and conclude what these older systems of fist fighting looked like...we can only put them in a cultural conquest and M is absolutely right. In Egypt one fought for the glory of Pharoah who was the living representation of the Gods. All other fighting activities were military in nature and not civilian.

By contrast, gladiators in Rome were treated much like we treat our sports heroes. They were allowed personal glory, the glory of the individual in a competition against another such individual.

One cannot just take a set of movements and call it similar with no respect for whether the movements had a military application, a self defense application, and with no understanding of how the culture appropriated the movements with a specific context.

A great example of this: In Japan (contrary to popular beliefs) and in Scotland if a duel occured and one was victorious there was no need to do any more harm to the fallen foe. This understanding made for certain developments. In Japan, wooden swords could be used so no one was cut down... In Scotland weapons were made a certain way... the Roman swords developed hand guards and the weapons used by killers were paired down to their essential form (look at a Scottish Dirk).

meanwhile in Europe where duels were about preserving honor at all costs, weapons were lengthened... less chance of mutual death with more distance and the duelists wanted as little contact with their dishonorable foes as possible.

They all fought with swords! Many fought with swords, but all these systems had distinct proclivities that made them very different culturally, physically and developmentally.

[billeau2]

That's the fresco....you can tell by it being labeled fresco and the total lack of armor. Are you reading my posts or just skimming?

M

Ive taken the liberty of explaining how I see your point. If I have misspoke feel free to say so and if so apologies in advance. I just feel like your point was applied in the work of Donn Draeger among others, a fine martial artist and student of cultures that have a martial culture. His work on Southeast asian blade systems was way ahead of its time... And his studies in Japan confirm that he was respected enough to train with perhaps the best living swordsman in that country to many.

[billeau2]

Yes, I see what you mean.

Thing is, he's motivated to find something older, and I'm curious. If it's out there a man on a mission will find it.

heres the problem IMO. One could advance some theory to the effect of: "Egyptians informed the Greeks about many things as an older culture with sensabilities that were even ancient compared to the Greeks at the time."

But how do we know what boxing was in Egypt? We can't even reconstruct their arts...and taking some forms depicted on a wall is not nearly enough to do so. I can tell you this, if ever a manual was found on an Egyptian martial art, military or otherwise...it would be published and guaranteed to make the publisher rich. Many martial artists like myself are curious and would pay a premium to have a translated look at a legitimate art with scrolls, directives, etc describing its purpose, techniques, etc.

Greek martial arts cannot be said to be practiced with a direct line of transmission, but they can easily be reconstructed. People like Jim Arvantis have done so with Pankraton for example. We have writing about these events, we even have some technical information.

[ShoulderRoll]

That's the fresco....you can tell by it being labeled fresco and the total lack of armor. Are you reading my posts or just skimming?

Ok then. How about this one? It appears to be a vase not a fresco but it's in Poliakoff's book.



He dates it to 1500 BCE. Making it, again, anywhere from 1100 to 1500 years AFTER the Mesopatamian fist fighting depiction.

Just facts. No need to get emotional about it.

[Marchegiano]

M

Ive taken the liberty of explaining how I see your point. If I have misspoke feel free to say so and if so apologies in advance. I just feel like your point was applied in the work of Donn Draeger among others, a fine martial artist and student of cultures that have a martial culture. His work on Southeast asian blade systems was way ahead of its time... And his studies in Japan confirm that he was respected enough to train with perhaps the best living swordsman in that country to many.

Yeah, you've got the right idea.

I think Shoulder took particular interest in my assertion that the oldest depiction of fist fighting in any form came from Aegean Islands.

I'm not sure why....surely as we dig up new stuff we will find older, and maybe since the book I lifted that information from was written we have and I just don't know.

I didn't feel like I was making a point yet, just talking about early depictions. It's really a non-issue to me except Shoulder taking interest in it has given me an interest myself. I might try to prove me wrong if he doesn't.

There's nothing about the early depictions, Greek or otherwise, that's connected to the sport. I made no claim the early Aegeans spread boxing around the ancient world and I went out of my way to stress I don't know how boxing as a martial art or performance art spread when I spoke about Sparta. I feel like I was very clear about where and how one of these many random forms of fist fighting morphed into a fist fighting sport and how that fist fighting sport became the fist fighting sport we call boxing today.


It's really a non-issue. If the Persians punched one another and drew it or carved it or whatever before the Aegeans then that's interesting and stuff but it changes this story by such a minute amount I'm curious why anyone would take interest in that part.

[ShoulderRoll]

Shoulder his point is not that fist fighting did not exist before the Greeks... His point is that when we take the development of boxing in Greece, the cultural perspective that birthed the ideals, perhaps the techniques, and the connection to later forms of fighting with fists all the way up to present day, there are distinct lines of transmission.

Hes explained this by citing the ethic implied in personal victory, the organization of competition with rules and procedures geared towards competition, similarities in rules and procedures, etc.

He may be right, or wrong, but that is the argument that M has substantiated with plenty of data.

Egyptian martial arts are unknown. We do not have a record of them. Aztec martial arts are another great example... Aztec warriors were expected to take up to six captives home for sacrifice...Must have been one heck of a fighting system! alas...aside from a priest describing an Aztec demonstrating a technique with the Obsidian blade against another individual...we have no information about these fighting systems.

What this means is that we cannot trace and conclude what these older systems of fist fighting looked like...we can only put them in a cultural conquest and M is absolutely right. In Egypt one fought for the glory of Pharoah who was the living representation of the Gods. All other fighting activities were military in nature and not civilian.

By contrast, gladiators in Rome were treated much like we treat our sports heroes. They were allowed personal glory, the glory of the individual in a competition against another such individual.

One cannot just take a set of movements and call it similar with no respect for whether the movements had a military application, a self defense application, and with no understanding of how the culture appropriated the movements with a specific context.

A great example of this: In Japan (contrary to popular beliefs) and in Scotland if a duel occured and one was victorious there was no need to do any more harm to the fallen foe. This understanding made for certain developments. In Japan, wooden swords could be used so no one was cut down... In Scotland weapons were made a certain way... the Roman swords developed hand guards and the weapons used by killers were paired down to their essential form (look at a Scottish Dirk).

meanwhile in Europe where duels were about preserving honor at all costs, weapons were lengthened... less chance of mutual death with more distance and the duelists wanted as little contact with their dishonorable foes as possible.

They all fought with swords! Many fought with swords, but all these systems had distinct proclivities that made them very different culturally, physically and developmentally.

I like Marchegiano.

But did he or did he not write that our first or oldest bit of evidence for fist fighting comes from the Aegean islands and Corfu? Yes or no?

That is simply not true. I just proved that statement wrong with facts.