In some cases, rather than have opposing armies battle each other with tremendous loss of life on both sides, the outcome was decided by a battle of champions. Settling disputes without having to kill a lot of people was also important in early warfare. It’s also represented in a sort of ancient animation sequence in an Egyptian mural that is 4000 years old (shown). A papyrus discovered in Egypt but written in Greek, dated to 100 AD, states the rules of the game at that time.
Wrestling is the oldest individual competition with documented rules. It provided a format in which two individuals could struggle for dominance, but it also established a stopping point and rules about what was allowed and what was forbidden. The invention of the game allowed people to co mpete without having to die for the victory.
However, physical contests can also prove deadly. Winners gain power and prestige losers are shamed. It’s natural for us to want to know who can fight the best, run the fastest, or jump the highest. Individual contests have probably been around since people have. So what did ancient people do with all that spare time? Apparently, some of them did exactly what we do: they played games. Ancient people in temperate environments may well have spent far less time working each day than modern folks do.
Thousands of years ago, the job might have been even easier because there were far fewer people competing for available resources. For contemporary hunter-gatherers, at least in the 20th century, collecting food, even in a challenging environment, took only half the day. However, studies of contemporary societies and recent archaeological finds paint a different picture. When we think of ancient people, we usually picture them hunting big game, gathering plants, making clothing and shelter, warding off terrifying beasts, fighting enemies, dealing with drought, flood, storms, injuries, and disease – in other words, struggling to survive.