Medieval Islamic games
Medieval Islamic games: Muslims playing chess in Spain Chess from India The big new game of the Islamic Empire was chess. The Arabs learned to play chess from the Sassanians when [...]
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07, 2017
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07, 2017
Hero and Leander – a Greek story
Leander swimming to Hero (from Pompeii) Who was Hero? In this Greek version of an old story, Hero was a priestess of Aphrodite, whose father sent her to live alone in [...]
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06, 2017
Why don’t people of color swim?
A Tibetan swimming contest in the Kyichu River (1695 AD) In most of the world, people kept on swimming after 1500 AD pretty much the same way they had before [...]
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06, 2017
When did people learn to swim?
African swimming (Gilf Kebir cave, Libya, ca. 8000 BC) Many animals can swim. Probably people have always been able to swim too. The very earliest human people lived along the [...]
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06, 2017
Swimming in the Middle Ages
Women swimming in the Seljuk kingdom (1494 AD) The fall of the Roman Empire and the Sassanian Empire in the 500s AD doesn't seem to have made much difference to [...]
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06, 2017
History of swimming in the Americas
Aztec swimmer from Teotihuacan (ca. 500 AD) The first people who came to the Americas probably already knew how to swim, as they got their food from fishing and gathering [...]
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06, 2017
Ancient Egyptian games: play and toys in ancient Egypt
Ancient Egyptian games: knucklebones Egyptian board games: senet and mancala Ancient Egyptian games were a lot like some games people still play today. Some Egyptian games were traditional African games. [...]
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06, 2017
Pearl Diving – History of Pearls
A pearl inside an oyster Very early in human history, maybe around 100,000 years ago, many people lived along the coasts of Africa and lived mainly on seafood - seaweed, [...]
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06, 2017
Women in early China: swimming to foot-binding
Early Chinese women: A Chinese woman playing polo (T'ang Dynasty, 700s AD) China has always been influenced by the cultures to its south - India and Southeast Asia - where [...]
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06, 2017
Swimming in Ancient China – Chinese Games
Zhou Dynasty swimmers (Sichuan bronze vessel, ca. 750 BC) The very first people to arrive in China from Africa about 50,000 BC probably already knew how to swim. People in [...]
