Eurasian Horse Riders Played Ball Games 3,000 Years Ago – Leather Balls Found In Graves Reveal

Conny Waters – MessageToEagle.com – Ball games are one of the most popular leisure activities in the world. Not only are ball games an important form of mass entertainment, but it has also become big business.

But who invented balls, where, and when? The oldest balls that are currently known about were made in Egypt about 4,500 years ago using linen. Central Americans have been playing ball games for at least 3,700 years, as evidenced through monumental ball courts made of stone and depictions of ball players. Their oldest balls were made of rubber.

Scythian warrior. Image source

Until now, it was believed that ball games in Europe and Asia followed much later: In Greece about 2,500 years ago and in China about 300 years after that.

Researchers from the University of Zurich, together with German and Chinese researchers, have now examined in more detail three leather balls found in graves in the old Yanghai cemetery near the city of Turfan in northwest China. The balls, measuring between 7.4 and 9.2cm in diameter, have been dated at around 2,900 to 3,200 years old.

“This makes these balls about five centuries older than the previously known ancient balls and depictions of ball games in Eurasia,” says first author Patrick Wertmann of the Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies of the University of Zurich in a press statement.

“Unfortunately, however, the associated archeological information is not sufficient to answer the question of exactly how these balls were played.”

The three leather balls with diameters between 7.4 and 9.2 cm are between 3200 and 2900 years old. Credit: UZH

The earliest illustrations from Greece show ball players running, and depictions from China show riders using sticks. Comparable curved sticks were also found in Yanghai, but there was no apparent direct connection with the balls. Moreover, they are dated to a more recent period.

“Therefore, the leather balls from Yanghai are not connected to early forms of field hockey or polo, even though two of the balls were found in the graves of horsemen,” says Wertmann.