Boxing’s oldest pictures are already five thousand years old
In a ring, two fighters punch for timed rounds, usually gloved. Western boxing means fists only, though the word also covers other combat traditions. Sumerian and Egyptian images from the third millennium BC show the sport; Greek rules are among the earliest written codes.
Bert Blewett's 1999 A-Z of World Boxing proposes that the sport arose in present-day Ethiopia in the sixth millennium BC, and that Egypt picked it up from the Nubians before it spread to Greece, Mesopotamia and Rome. Mesopotamian stone reliefs from the end of the fourth millennium BC are the earliest images; a relief from Thebes around 1350 BC shows spectators as well, and Minoan Crete, around 1500 to 1400 BC, supplies the first evidence of gloves. In India, fist combat called musti-yuddha appears in the Rig Veda and Ramayana, and the Mahabharata describes bouts mixing punches with kicks, knees and headbutts.
The funeral games for Patroclus in the Iliad contain the first literary prize fight. Greek pygmachia entered the Olympics in 688 BC, with leather thongs wound around the hands, no rounds and no weight classes, so fights ran until someone conceded. Romans hardened the straps and added metal studs to create the cestus. After Rome fell, records largely vanish in the West, though Italian cities kept fist-fighting traditions and old Rus had kulachniy boy, mentioned in the Primary Chronicle around 1117.
England revived bare-knuckle prizefighting in the 16th century. The first printed report of a fight appeared in the London Protestant Mercury in 1681, and James Figg became the first English champion in 1719. Early bouts permitted gouging and throws, as Sir Thomas Parkyns described in 1713. Champion Jack Broughton's rules of 1743 ended a fight when a downed man failed to rise within 30 seconds and banned hitting him on the floor. Pierce Egan later dubbed the scene the sweet science of bruising, and the London Prize Ring Rules outlawed butting, biting and kicking.
In America, enslaved men were forced to fight for owners' wagers, and the first US professionals were free Black men. In 1867 John Graham Chambers drafted the rules published under the Marquess of Queensberry's name. Modern bouts run in rounds of one to three minutes, decided by knockout, stoppage or the judges' scorecards.
Source: Boxing
