REVIEW ESSAY

Decker on Sport in Pharaonic Egypt: Recreations and Rituals, Combats and Ceremonies, Agonism-and Athletics? Sports and Games of Ancient Egypt by Wolfgang Decker, trans. Allen Guttmann New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1992. Reviewed by Donald G. Kyle, University of Texas a t Arlington

The dean o f the modern, disciplined study o f ancient Egyptian sport, Wolfgang Decker has authored numerous books and articles on the activities, sources and historiography of Egyptian sport. Decker's contributions t o sport history at the lnstitut fur Sporthgeschichte o f the Sporthochschule in Cologne also include his editorial work on Stadion and now Nikephoros. In the Yale Sport and History series, this unrevised translation of his 1987 German work is a great boon for sport historians. Egyptian sport finally becomes approachable in English. Even more valuable for the specialist will be the eventual publication of an extensive handbook promised by Decker herein.

The appearance of Decker's book is most opportune. Interest in sport history continues t o grow, and North American interest in ancient Egypt, a perennially popular topic, has been increased by touring exhibitions o f spectacular Egyptian artifacts (from the reigns of Tutankhamon, Ramesses II and Amenhotep Ill), and by the Afrocentrist movement and the scholarly controversy over M. Bernal's Black Athena.1 Yet t o most people "ancient Egypt" s t i l l evokes images of pyramids and mummification, not of sports and recreation. An exhibition organized by the Cleveland Museum of Art, "Egypt's Dazzling Sun: Amenhotep Ill and His World" recently appeared at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth. Crowds gathered around the monumental works of art, a mummy case, and the jewelry; hardly any attention was paid to the ceremonial spoons with handles in the shape of girl swimmers or t o the commemorative scarab (Cleveland Museum of Art, no. 84.36) on the underside of which hieroglyphics recorded a wild bull hunt by Amenhotep (=Amenophis) in the second year o f his reign. Overlooking no source, Decker meticulously collects and categorizes such evidence t o show that the ancient Egyptians, especially their pharaohs and their nobles, participated in a variety of sports and games.

Decker achieves his main aims (ix): t o make readers "conscious of the fact that ancient Egypt is an important new area for sport history", "to demonstrate the function o f sport in Egyptian society", and "to approach Egyptian sport from an interdisciplinary perspective and, at last, t o give it i ts

due." With an authoritative command of the scholarship and documentation, and with a justifiable degree of righteous indignation and enthusiasm, Decker shows that Egyptian sport has been understudied because of Greece's domination of ancient sport studies, and that a wealth of evidence attests to sporting activities over the 3000-year reign of the pharaohs. He provides a broad survey of "sports and games", o f physical pursuits, recreational activities, and agonistic rituals. Since "sport" is a modern word with no exact Egyptian equivalent, Decker applies "sport" broadly t o "physical games and activities" ranging from board games to pharaonic hunts. Well illustrated with 132 black and white illustrations, the work treats us t o an array of evidence and activities. From hieroglyphics to wall paintings to sport's equipment (e.g. balls, throwing sticks), and from ritual runs by the pharaoh in the Sed festival t o archery and chariot demonstrations in the New Kingdom to impromptu fishermen's jousting to ball and board games, Decker's text makes it undeniable that the love of sport was not a Greek preserve.

Nine chapters comprise the work. An introduction lays the conceptual and organizational groundwork, then a chapter on sources categories testimonia by type and era. The nature of the evidence (mostly from tombs of kings and nobles or from temple monuments) unavoidably leads to a concentration on the elite. The longest chapters, 3 and 4 (40 & 43 pp.) on "The Athletic Kings" and "Sports of Private Persons", are oriented to the participants, although the pharaoh is clearly in an exceptional position and the "private persons" tend t o be aristocratic officials and soldiers. Chapter 5 on "Competition", is a brief centerpiece summarizing arguments running throughout the work-that the Egyptians were agonistic, that sport competitions were not invented by the Greeks, and that certain incidents and sources suggest athletics. Any living sport historian must now agree that sport is a universally human and culturally adapted phenomenon, that ethology and ethnology affirm agonism, from the Outback t o Wall Street, as fundamental t o human experience, and that agonistic metaphors abound in. widely dispersed myths and literature from the myth o f Horus and Seth to the story o f Job.2 Beyond the application o f these points t o Egypt, however, Decker strays into some strained arguments (see below). Chapters 6-8 focus on "sport disciplines": "Games" (children's and board games), "Acrobatics" (especially strenuous or gymnastic performances by female dancers) and "Hunting" (as a sporting pastime of the nobility). The book closes not with a conclusion bu t w i th a "History of Research" showing that Egyptology and sport history have only recently overlapped and that there is much more to be done. While clear, Decker's organization (and his penchant for categorization) results in redundancies: the same items (e.g. the jumping game o f khazza lawizza, the Running Stela o f Taharqa, the Sphinx Stela) are

discussed first as evidence, later concerning the activity involved, and later again concerning their discovery or historiography. Decker repeatedly returns to a few objects that he sees as of great importance for asserting claims to Egyptian agonism and even athleticism.

Decker does not claim that sport originated in Egypt but he says that Egypt offers the oldest visual representations and written accounts, and that (ix) "In Egypt, for the first time in history, sport played a significant social and political role." The most characteristic elements of Egyptian sport should appear early, endure, and be well attested. The Sed or jubilee festival, in which the pharaoh made a circuit on foot around turn-posts or markers, is attested from the third millenium on in art and architecture. Markers known from the pyramid complex of Djoser are presented as (29) "the world's oldest sports facility (ca. 2600 B.C.), although one must qualify this claim with the reservation that the running track was an element of the royal funerary complex and not the stage for the actual run that took place during the Festival of Sed." As Decker explains, the run was "the act and ritual demonstration of a unique person, the king". Involving no other "competitors" and (32) "only a hint of physical exertion", this was not an endurance feat-the completion of the performance achieved i t s ritual purpose. The run could be done by aging pharaohs and was not definitely done until 30 years into a king's reign. Sport can become ritual and vice versa, but some anthropological interpretation, e.g. that an original demonstration of physical qualification for rule had become a symbolic circuit of territory ("a seizure of possession run") and a ritual rejuvenation, seems best here.

Decker has some attractive theories about the origin of sport in prehistoric hunting, and about the establishment of primitive leadership by physical demonstration: hunting began as a way to provide food, then the leading hunter became a protector of early farming communities by duelling against beasts, and then at the edge of civilization hunting (for the elite) became a "sport", a demonstration of superiority and soon also a paramilitary preparation. When he moves from theories about prehistory to the history of hunting, however, Decker s t i l l limits his survey to big-game hunts as the prerogative of the pharaohs and swamp hunts-spearing fish and hunting fowl with throwing sticks-as a noble pastime. "Within the scope of this book, hunting is relevant only to the degree that it was not done primarily for i ts contribution to the food supply. In big-game hunts the pharaoh was able to demonstrate his strength and exercise his protective function." (6) The resources of the elite and the demand for success in hunting led to monopolies on the hunting of certain animals, the gathering of game, and the construction of special hunting parks.3 Artificially bounded by fences and ditches, the remains of a royal hunting preserve (600x300 m.) of the era of

Amenophis ill have been found in Soleb in Nubia. Perhaps this helps explain the claims on several commemorative scarabs that Amenophis killed 56 wild bulls on the first day o f a hunt.

For a millenium and a half, Egypt shows continuity in i ts sport, from the Sed run t o the depictions o f wrestlers in the tombs at Beni Hasan to a love o f hunting and fishing, but the Second Intermediate Period led to changes. After the shock of the Hyksos and their introduction of war chariots and composite bows, 18th dynasty pharaohs, most conspicuously Amenophis II, met the need to appear robust as warrior-hunters for military credibility. Historians agree that most New Kingdom pharaohs, with exception o f Akhenaton (the "religious fanatic") were militarily aggressive and personally vigorous, and that performances o f combat sports by soldiers were held at court.4 Various New Kingdom pharaohs were "athletic" in the sense that they trained to acquire physical fitness and military skills and they gave ceremonial demonstrations of chariot driving, horsemanship and archery. Decker feels that the "age of the athletic monarchs" began with Tuthmosis Ill and peaked with Amenophis II but declined in the 19th-20th dynasties. Influenced by E. Hornung, Decker repeatedly cautions us that we must understand that Egyptian royal dogma put the pharaoh as the guarantor of bounty and life for Egypt, that he was a god who could not fail in war or rule, and that his powers were unlimited.5 In sport this meant that he could have no rivals and that he could not fail. The sporting notion of fair and open competition did not apply.6 Decker nevertheless argues that the pharaohs had exceptional "athletic" abilities. Personally, influenced by the Greek etymology of the word wi th its key elements of contest and prize, I prefer t o distinguish "athletics" as a subset o f the much more inclusive realm of sport.

Presenting Amenophis Il's bowmanship (36-39) as a "brilliant feat of archery", a "truly extraordinary athletic performance", and an "athletic achievement" showing "athletic mastery", Decker presents as acceptable the, Sphinx Stela's assertions that the king, after drawing 300 bows, was a perfect shot even from a moving chariot, that he shot four arrows in one pass, all passing through copper ingot targets a hand's breadth thick. He admits modern simulations suggest the need for some skepticism in regard to the credibility o f Egyptian accounts o f the pharaoh's achievements" (44), that the act may have symbolized domination o f Asian peoples, that the Egyptian conception o f history dispensed with strict historicity,7 but (46) "With all due caution, one can still assume that personal preferences and talent produced real sport achievements. "8

A t times Decker's argumentation and use of evidence involve awkwardness or inconsistency. Symbolic texts with magico-religious or

politico-religious functions are sometimes used almost in an objectivist fashion.9 Are we to believe the claim of the Sphinx Stela that Amenophis 11, without help or resting, used a rudder of around 10 meters in length to steer a great boat with a crew of 200 for a distance of over 30 kilometers, or that the victor in a suitor contest in the "Tale of the Enchanted [or Doomed] Princeu jumped up to a window more than 36 meters above the ground?lo Such accounts remind us of stories about Milo and other Greek athletic heroes. The sporting tall tale seems to be a widespread phenomenon, spilling over here into official and religiously important propaganda." Egyptian testimonia

may, but modern sport historians may not, fudge the issue of historicity. Otherwise we must accept Nero's Olympic victories as evidence of athletic achievement and believe that Commodus was an invincible gladiator. Coming from someone with no expertise in sport history before the Greeks, my reservations are admittedly impressionistic and irreverent, but they are those of an historian, not a philhellenic Neo-Humanist.

Despite attempts at times, this is not a history of Egyptian "athletics", for the institutionalization of athletic festivals with prizes and specialized facilities st i l l belongs to the Greeks. Yes, Egypt had popular sport, military physical training, and ritual royal performances but Greece unquestionably had institutionalized athletics. Decker makes as much as he can of one pharaoh's impromptu and unconventional invitation to compete with him. A fragmentary inscription from near Luxor, a unique, anonymously transmitted document, says that after shooting an arrow that protruded 719th~ of i ts shaft through a copper ingot target Amenophis I1 challenged others and offered (undescribed) prizes for matching his performance. Decker explains (42) that the king could risk his prestige "because there was, in reality, not risk at all", and he adds that the imagined outcome is that the opponents failed. The "Running Stela of Taharqa" of the Nubian 25th dynasty of the seventh century B.C. (62-66) is hailed as "among the most important sources for ancient Egyptian sports" and "irrefutable evidence of an Egyptian running contest." The king orders soldiers trained in running to "race" from Memphis to the Fayum and back (ca. 100 km in 9 hours); he accompanies them in a chariot but joins them in running for part of the distance, and he offers prizes-a ceremonial meal with his bodyguard for the victor and unspecified prizes ("all manner of things") for other runners. However, this exceptional document about a Nubian pharaoh running and giving prizes comes from the twilight of pharaonic Egypt not, as with Greece, at the dawn of that civilization's literature.12 Decker is undeterred by his own observations that the runners and abundant wrestlers in Egyptian art were clearly soldiers in training and that ceremonial matches between foreigners and Egyptians at

,

court always ended with Egyptian victories. He admits that, despite 3000 years

of sport, Egypt had no specialized facilities for contests. He can find no evidence o f chariot racing, and he concedes that chariots were not specialized for racing, yet he argues (48) that the survival of chariots suggests races: "And yet the unusually good Egyptian sources give the impression that we are in a sphere colored in some special way by sports. "73

Decker's work itself shows that the Sed run is the oldest and most recurrent "race", the 18th dynasty was a new development in direct reaction t o the Hyksos' invasion (one third of the illustrations are from the 18th of Egypt's 31 dynasties), and most depictions of sports concern the leisure activities, the training, or the ceremonial performances o f officials or soldiers. If Decker is unaware o f unquestionable evidence for institutionalized athletic competitions, such evidence has not yet been found; and, if for any ancient culture, arguments from the absence or dearth of evidence for a phenomenon have force for Egypt.14 Egypt had 3000 years of sport and its climate, funerary customs and wealth have left an abundance o f evidence, yet Decker has t o emphasize exceptional or singular instances which might be athletic.15 Fighting traditional biases as energetically as the Afrocentrists, Decker overstates his case in indicting some archaic straw men (Burckhardt, Jiithner, Gardiner). As Decker says (104), Gardiner's attitudes on race and sport were already outdated even as he wrote.16 Clearly both Egypt and Greece had sports, bu t Decker has to admit that the prominence of athletics (institutionalized, regular competitions, training, prizes, etc.) in Greece was exceptional.17 The question for the future must be the interaction between these cultures, but that goes beyond the scope of the present volume.18

Allen Guttman's translation can be trusted as true to the original German: he has already translated Bero Rigauer's Sport und Arbeit, and at times this text, with occasional long sentences and extra words, lacks the fluidity and clarity o f Guttmann's own writing style. Guttmann dutifully translates even Decker's criticism (56-59) of the "modernist" Eichberg-. Guttman-Mandell school. Decker argues that Egyptian sport went beyond ritual and that a notion o f record is shown when the kings of the 18th dynasty applied a concept o f "extension o f the preexistent" and competed against their predecessors, themselves, and their successors. He collects instances where purported sport feats were quantified by use o f numbers (300 bows, a 10 m. rudder, hunting kills, etc.), but Guttmann's arguments about the ritualistic nature o f such sport remain secure. Egypt lacked the standardized I circumstances and objective empirical recording of modern sport. The hyperbolic and absolutist claims of pharaonic sources too often were fashioned by dogma, symbolism, and mythologizing.

We are indebted t o Decker for educating us about new sources and new realms o f sport, and for revealing for us the cultural adaptation of sport in the distinctively Egytian context, but we perhaps should draw our own conclusions about Egyptian athleticism. Although we must be judicious in argumentation, certainly we must broaden our sport horizons t o include Egypt and more. Despite my quibbling, there is no question that Decker's fundamental contribution now opens the door for pursuing comparisons between Egypt and other sporting cultures.19 To our benefit, Egyptology and sport history should continue t o enrich each other, and Decker's contributions .to sport history must be hailed as monumental.

ENDNOTES 1E.g. reviews by Molly Myerowitz Levine in AHR 97 (April 1992) 440-460

and by E. Vermeule in NYRB (March 26,1992) 40-43; "The Challenge o f Black Athena", a special issue o f Arethusa, fall 1989; "Did Egypt Shape the Glory that was Greece?", a special report by John F. Coleman and M. Bernal, Archaeology 34.5 (Sept./Oct. 1992) 48-55, 76-86; and Mary Lefkowitz, "Not Out of Africa: The Origins of Greece and the Illusions of Afrocentrists," The New Republic (February 10,1992) 29-36.

*See I. Weiler, "Alien Aristeuein," Stadion 1 (1974) 197-227 and Der Agon im Mythos (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1974); and Michael B. Poliakoff, Combat Sports in the Ancient World (New Haven: Yale, 1987), especially " Metapor, Myth and Reality," 134-1 47.

3Cf. similar features in the royal hunts of Persian kings, discussed by J.K. Anderson, Hunting in the Ancient World (Berkeley: University o f California, 1985), 58-63.

4E.g. N. de G. Davies, "The King as Sportsman," BMMA 30 no. 2 (November 1935) 49-53; J.A. Wilson, "Ceremonial Games in the New Kingdom," JEA 17 (1931) 21 1-230.

5"The pharaoh stood apart from the sphere o f athletic competition because his unmatched superiority was, in theory, not t o be questioned." (6)

6Decker defends the claims of pharaohs as outstanding athletes even though (108): "It is ... the essence of a sport competition that it identify the winner as the best o f those who competed under neutral rules and equal conditions. In this sense, the idea of the agon totally contradicts the basic idea of the Egyptian royal dogma." Cf. Poliakoff, op. cit., 7: " 1 define sport and athletics ... as activity in which a person physically competes against another in a contest with established regulations and procedures, with the immediate object of succeeding in that contest under criteria for determining victory that are different from those that mark success in everyday life

(warfare, of course, being included as part of everyday life in antiquity). In other words, sport, as opposed to play or recreation, cannot exist without an opponent and a system for measuring the success or failure of the competitors' performances [my emphasis].

7"Ritual and ceremony occupy the center of this conception of history while real events, the historical facts, are simply not the stuff of Egyptian historiography." (20)

PDecker (42) feels Amenophis II had a "sports career" that was "unequalled-and not just in relation to Egyptian monarchs."

9As N. Serwint notes in her forthcoming review in IJHS, Decker sometimes imposes rather literalist interpretations on the fundamentally symbolic nature of Egyptian art. For example, the use of sport in tomb art and the inclusion of board games (e.g. the Senet or "IField" board game) in tombs may reflect the former interests of the deceased, or they may function as metaphors for the struggle or quest for immortality. Hunting and fishing scenes may simply represent the enthusiasm of the participants, or they may symbolize fertility or dominance of nature.

lop. 154: "Tuthmosis Ill was able to display an impressive array of game: "In a single second I killed seven lions with arrow shots."" P. 150 says Thutmose Ill killed 12 wild bulls in an hour: since the same document is used, " 120" on p. 58 presumably is a typo.

1lRamesses 11's claims about his heroic role at the Battle of Kadesh are not consistent with Hittite accounts, but Decker (14) suggests that "The numerous reports of the Battle of Kadesh, where Ramesses II ... proved himself a superb and obdurate fighter, should also be noted by sport historians."

Weeking traces of funeral games, Decker finds only one possible instance (involving soldiers) but feels (81-82) "...we cannot exclude the . possibility that wrestling and fencing matches also occurred to honor deceased royalty. " Decker also suggests that Herodotus' story (2.160) of Egyptian advice for the Olympic Games proves that the Egyptians (18) "had a good sense of actual athletic practice.

13The chariots themselves compensate fo'r the lack of direct statements about chariot races. " (51)

14Decker admits (62) that, excluding the Sed ritual, "which had a very different significance", nothing in the history of Egyptian sport resembles the dominance of running in Greek art. He cannot find representations of running races, abundant on Greek vases, but feels that, with references to military and messenger runners, "We may, therefore, be justified in thinking that such contests occurred in practice more often than the evidence indicates."

IsDecker admits that competitive swimming is unmentioned in Egyptian sources but he shows that swimming was widespread and adds that

reference to a diving contest in a myth presupposes the ability to swim." Cf. p. 97: "A regular regatta of rowboats is not t o be found in the Egyptian sources, although it is not difficult t o imagine the boats' crews held impromptu races and endurance contests."

16Others may want t o respond t o Decker's distinction (64-65) o f runners o f "native Egyptian stock" from Nubians or Hamites (East Africans), and t o the suggestion that Nubians by their "stocky build" were suited for combat events and not running: "Nubian soldiers seemed simply predestined for this sport [wrestling] because of their commanding physiques." (77) On apparent Nubian roots for pharaonic kingship, see B. Williams, "The Lost Pharaohs o f Nubia," Archaeology 33 no. 5 (1980) 12-21. On wrestling and stick fighting among the ancient Nubians and modem Nuba, see Scott T. Carroll, "Wrestling in Ancient Nuba," JSH 15 no. 2 (Summer, 1988) 121-137.

17On the distinctively Greek institutionalization o f athletic festivals and prizes, Poliakoff, op. cit. 18, comments: "There is no parallel in the rest of the ancient world for the massive Greek system. Egypt shows no trace of regular sport competitions, with the exception of the festival for the Greek hero Perseus at Chemnis, an event which Herodotus explicitly called a rare borrowing for Greek ways. ... high-level sports abounded in antiquity, particularly in Egypt, but it is culturally significant that outside of the Greek world little attempt was made t o provide formal, regular vehicles for athletic competition." Decker (145) suggests Herodotus (2.91) confused pole climbing in the erection o f a hut for the god Min with a Greek style contest for Perseus.

18Decker uses W. Burkert's convincing argument ("Von Amenophis II zur Bogenprobe des Odysseus," Grazer Beitrage 1 (1973) 69-78) that the fame of Egyptian archery featsfclaims influenced the bow contest in the Odyssey, but he does not discuss parallels between Odysseus' Phaeacian adventure and the tale of "The Doomed Prince" in a 13th-century papyrus about an Egyptian prince in Mesopotamia winning in a suitor contest by a physical feat (probably jumping). Both heroes hid their identities and initially make excuses (about their knees or feet) but ended up showing up the locals.

l9For some valuable insights on combat sports, see Poliakoff, "On the Nature and Purpose of Combat Sports," op. cit., 89-1 15.