Great Webpage On Ancient Wrestling

[Zankou]

I have seen a few of these before, but I've never seen such an extensive compilation (too bad the resolution is so low tho). You always hear about how every civilization has had wrestling, but here's the pictorial proof that high-level wrestling techniques have existed for many thousands of years.

http://www.wrestlingsbest.com/gifs/wrespictart01.html

A few examples:

Seoi nage, 500 BC:

Arm triangle:

Egypt, 2400 BC -- hard to see, but just about every basic grappling technique and many advanced:

Amazing to think this was drawn 2400 years before Jesus. To conclude, here's a primitive 50/50 from India, 500 years ago. Bottom guy is looking to take an advantage, but the guard passer is blocking him from locking the foot cross body.

 

[Was Exiled]

any scuptures of worm guard/berimbolo?

In all seriousness though, I'd love to see a modern day nogi grappler compete against ancient pankration fighters

 

[Big Nasty Edison]

Tombstone Piledriver!!!!

 

[seatea]

A technique from one of the Beni Hasan tombs. A two-legged tomoe-nage if I ever did see one.

Harai-makikomi.

Here is a clearer depiction of the Beni Hasan mural.

 

[Magjee]

tombstone piledriver!!!!

...69?

 

[seatea]

A few examples:

Seoi nage, 500 BC:

If I remember correctly the ref (figure on the left) would use his stick to hit the competitors if they were breaking any rules. Maybe something the IBJJF can adopt.

 

[deadlizard]

To any idiot to says grip fighting is not important

 

[winterbike]

Wait, you're telling me Judo didn't invent all of these?

 

[MadSquabbles500]

But Helio still invented the leverage.

 

[MadSquabbles500]

To any idiot to says grip fighting is not important

Well to be fair there is no murals of jacket wrestling, which I find surprising.

 

[Quipling]

Something I thought was interesting - look at how heavily developed the thighs are (compared to the upper body) in the greek examples.

 

[Crossface9]

These are amazing. Its why I love wrestling, its so ingrained in human history.

 

[Chr9is]

^^^

I always cringe/shake my head internally when people get into a huge semantics debate over what grappling style did this, or how someone invented (basic widely known technique here).

 

[Crossface9]

Yup, Wrestling/grappling is too old for that..

 

[JosephDredd]

This is fantastic. There was a guy on the Underground who was getting his PHD in medieval martial arts and his blog was great. I think he can be found on Stickgrappler's website. Or he was stickgrappler.

 

[SFCFighter]

Well to be fair there is no murals of jacket wrestling, which I find surprising.

as it should be

 

[JosephDredd]

as it should be

It really lost its self-defense applicability when we stopped wrestling buck naked.

 

[Chungungo]

These are amazing. Its why I love wrestling, its so ingrained in human history.

Absolutely and is so autoctone and informal at the same time, no grading and no crazy expensive like BJJ --- XD

 

[cms9690]

This is absolutely awesome.

History AND grappling? It's like I'm in heaven.

 

[Crossface9]

This is absolutely awesome.

History AND grappling? It's like I'm in heaven.

Couldn't agree more.