Traces of Boxing Found in Markazi Province Petroglyphs
TEHRAN.(Iranart) – Archaeologists have found boxing people carved among the prehistoric rocks of Teymareh in Khomeyn, Markazi Province, which reportedly are 40,000 years old.The engraved sketch shows two men fighting in a match, in a gesture much similar to today’s boxing.
“In addition, there is evidence of a stage on which a boxing arbiter watches the match,” IRNA quoted Mohammad Naseri-Fard, a member of the research team, as saying on Sunday. Although the history of boxing has been attributed to ancient Greece where the sport was a well-developed field, the recent discoveries show that boxing was a popular contest also among the ancient ancestors of Persians in the 4th and 3rd millennium BCE. Experts believe that boxing had been practiced mostly for recreation and preparation for war. “Besides boxing, stone carvings earlier discovered throughout the country show polo players, horseback archery and more, that are further evidence confirming that advanced civilization flourished in central Iran,” Naseri-Fard added. The earliest known depiction of boxing comes from a Sumerian relief in Iraq from the 3rd millennium BCE.Teymareh is the oldest place in Iran, where traces of the hard-working ancestors remain. The oldest discovered scripts of mankind are sheltered by rocks and mountains of the area.