Sports

From Neolithic wrestling pits to the modern Olympic stadium — how humans turned play into organised competition, and competition into civilisation.

8 posts· 7000 BCE – 393 CE

• The last Olympiad, 393 CE 393 CE
• Pankration: the sport with one rule (well, two) 648 BCE
• The pentathlon at Olympia, and a jump no one has explained 708 BCE
• The first Olympic footrace, and the cook who won it 776 BCE
• Eight clay ballplayers and the world's first court 1400 BCE
• The bull-leaper of Knossos 1500 BCE
• Beni Hasan's wall of wrestlers: Egypt's oldest sports record 2000 BCE
• Mongolian wrestling and the world's first crowd 7000 BCE