ehh actually baseball is known to have been invented by the ancient mesopotamians
Posted on 03/16/2003 4:29:13 AM PST by mhking
Pharaoh at bat? History throws a curve
Professor claims earliest bat-and-ball games were played in ancient Egypt
By BRUCE WEBER, New York Times
First published: Saturday, March 15, 2003
No disrespect meant to Abner Doubleday or Alexander Cartwright or anybody else who might claim responsibility for the game we call baseball, but Thutmose III had them beat by three millennia or so.
Thutmose ruled Egypt during the 15th century B.C., and is the first known pharaoh to have depicted himself in a ritual known as seker-hemat, which Egyptologist Peter A. Piccione has loosely translated as "batting the ball."
"The word they use is sequer, which literally means to strike or to hit," said Piccione, 51, a professor of comparative ancient history at the College of Charleston in South Carolina, "but in the context, he's there with the bat. I translated it as batting the ball."
The context he's referring to is a wall relief at the shrine of Hathor, the goddess of love and joy, in Hatshepsut's temple at Deir-el-Bahari, where Thutmose is seen holding a softball-size ball in one hand and a long stick, wavy at the end, in the other. The hieroglyphic over the scene reads: "Batting the ball for Hathor, who foremost in Thebes." The date is circa 1475 B.C.
The picture of Thutmose also shows two priests, small figures, in the act of catching a ball.
"They have their arms raised up and balls in their hands like you would catch a softball," Piccione said. "The inscription says, 'Catching it for him by the servants of the gods.' "
Piccione makes a specialty of Egyptian religion. He's particularly interested in the sports and games that the ancient Egyptians included in festivals honoring certain deities, a pursuit that led him to muse on the relationship between ancient Egyptian "baseball" and American baseball. His findings are included in a popular lecture -- called "Pharaoh at the Bat" -- that he recently delivered in Charleston and has been honing since delivering a paper on the subject at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1995. In it, he describes a relationship similar to the one between, say, pterodactyls and blue jays.
"There's no direct connection, and Egyptians don't play anything like this at all today," Piccione said. "But the Egyptian game did function as a precursor. There are only a few bat and ball games that have ever been around."
Actually, Piccione said, Egyptians probably batted the ball around for nearly 1,000 years before Thutmose III. There are references to the activity in inscriptions inside the pyramids dating to 2400 B.C.
It isn't known precisely how the game was played. "To be honest, we don't know if they did any running," Piccione said, "but I suspect they did, because kings did a lot of running rituals."
Actually, the connections Piccione's lecture makes between then and now are more broadly cultural in nature.
"It started in Egypt as purely a boys' game," said Piccione (who is, incidentally, a Yankee fan even though he grew up in Brooklyn). "And it was probably played in a festival, so the actual ball-playing took on some kind of religious meaning because it was played in a religious context."
When the king came out and played, therefore, the excitement and fun of the game and its religious meaning were consolidated, he said.
"Baseball functions the same way," he said. "Over time it has accumulated meaning. It's an interesting parallel development."
He cites the idea that every spring baseball starts up again, and as such it has become a ritual of the season.
He cites the mythology that grows up around the players and lasts for generations, the near godliness of figures like Babe Ruth, the identification of the game with our country.
Piccione ended his lecture and an interview with a reading from his own version of Ernest Lawrence Thayer's "Casey at the Bat," which ends, alas, just as badly for the home team:
O somewhere in the Aten's circuit, the sun is shining bright
Nubian drums play somewhere and Hittite hearts are light
In Babylon men are laughing, in Nineveh children shout
But there is no joy in Mud-brickville
Great Pharaoh has struck out.
Hilarious (and a most interesting post).
And, really, what "bat" would old Tut be using to honor the godess of love?
Marge Schott is certainly old enough...
/grasping now
Genesis 1:1 "In the big inning, God created the Heavens and the earth..."
So there.
ehh actually baseball is known to have been invented by the ancient mesopotamians
It is interesting to note that the opposition will be coming to bat in, oh, about 72 hours.
Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on, off, or alter the "Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list --
Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
The GGG Digest -- Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)
;o)
"Who's on First, I Don't Known's on Second, and Thutmose is on Third."
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