Once upon a time, these 11 games were the talk of the town, a staple in everyone’s enjoyment. However, as time passed, they slowly faded into the background, losing their appeal. And maybe, when we examine the reasons, you might decide it’s for the best. These games, once loved, are now relics of the past, largely overlooked in today’s high-speed gaming world. But why did this happen? Let’s take a trip down memory lane to look.
Fisherman’s Jousting
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“This involved two teams getting on boats and trying to knock each other into the water. Egypt allowed you to use oars to beat your opponent, then add in the fact that most participants can’t swim, so falling in meant a pretty high chance of drowning and a few accounts of contestants being eaten by crocodiles.”
The Hoplitodromos
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“Men in full armor and carrying a shield raced two stades. This is about 300-400 meters and just happened to be about the distance a Persian archer could kill you at.
Perhaps the best part of this (for the ladies anyways) was that nothing but armor was worn.”
The Kalpe
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“Horse racing and foot racing can be found in many cultures. However, not many have the guts to combine the two. Of course, since the Greeks love running so much, they couldn’t just ride all eight laps around the hippodrome. At the 7th lap, they jumped off their moving horses and ran the last lap on foot while trying to avoid being trampled to death.”
The Orkney Ba
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“The Orkney Ba is played annually in Kirkwall. One half of the town is one team and the other another.
A mass scrum/pack/brawl fights either to a junction at one end of town or into the harbor at the other end of town.
No time limits, no real rules, and only one fatality – 100 years ago.”
Cuju
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“There are various ancient football-type games across Asia that are no longer played – Cuju is the earliest football-type game in the world, and is the reason my students to this day insist that ‘China invented football,’ as that is what is in their history books.
I seem to remember reading about the games the Mongols played while in the saddle, by throwing severed heads at each other.”
Buzkashi
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“It does still exist, although, rather than a head, the ball is a headless goat.”
“The one I read about involved throwing a severed head against the weave on another Mongol’s saddle while they rode next to you, and if you missed the correct place on the pattern, you received a punishment ranging from beating to beheading.”
Mesoamerican Ball Game
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“Lots of places in Mesoamerica had that one ball game, but I don’t think we know how it was played, and the rules were different in different civilizations. A lot of the pictures and murals and stuff of this game display the use of hip guards, and there is a version of ulama where you use your hips, which leads me to believe that there was a lot of bouncing the ball off your hip.”
The Mexica and Maya used this game in religious rituals. The Teotihuacani seem to have shunned this game by the time the Spanish got there; there were no ballcourts in Teotihuacan or any of the other places under their rule.”
Fox Tossing
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This was actually a real thing.
“In the 17th and 18th centuries, members of the aristocracy in certain parts of Europe would participate in contests wherein they would see who could hurl small animals the highest into the air.
Competitors would team up and each hold one end of a sling, leaving the middle flat on the ground. When one went over your sling, you attempted to hurl it as high in the air as you could. This was usually fatal for the animal.”
Wrassling
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“Bill Bryson described an American adaptation of wrassling (wrestling) that was very popular in the Appalachian region for more than a century. It was apparently extremely brutal and bloody and could result in death and disability.”
“I believe Bryson referenced a match that only ended after a man had both his eyes gouged out, his nose bit off, and his ears pulled from his head.”
Old-School Football
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“One popular game across Europe, particularly Britain, were the various football games that eventually evolved into the football codes of today like soccer and rugby.”
While the game varied from town to town, the general idea was that you put half the town’s men on one team and half on the other, and they get a ball-like object to one end of the city.
Additionally, Georgia in the South Caucasus used to play a game known as ‘lelo burti,’ which is quite similar both to rugby and to the games previously mentioned.
Viking Cricket
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From vague descriptions in Icelandic histories of the Vikings, one ball game sounds a bit like an early and very violent version of cricket.
The main difference is that most contemporary cricket players can expect to survive until the end of the game.
STUCK IN THE 60S: 10 THINGS BABY BOOMERS REFUSE TO LET GO OF
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Memories of the “good old days” keep us trapped in the past. Baby boomers love to retell tales of how it was “in my day.” At the same time, millennials will tell them to get with the times. Being stuck in a time warp from which they don’t want to snap out of, here are things that baby boomers still think are fantastic.
STUCK IN THE 60S: 10 THINGS BABY BOOMERS REFUSE TO LET GO OF
16 ANNOYING PHRASES THAT MAKE PEOPLE IMMEDIATELY HATE YOU!
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We wanted to know the most irksome things someone can say that turn you off! These online forum users didn’t hold back!
16 ANNOYING PHRASES THAT MAKE PEOPLE IMMEDIATELY HATE YOU!
OBSOLETE MILLENNIALS: 14 SKILLS THEY LEARNED IN THE 90S THAT HAVE NO PLACE IN TODAY’S WORLD
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A lot has changed since the turn of the century – just ask this nostalgic lot!
OBSOLETE MILLENNIALS: 14 SKILLS THEY LEARNED IN THE 90S THAT HAVE NO PLACE IN TODAY’S WORLD
THE FALL FROM GRACE: 12 PROFESSIONS THAT WERE ONCE REVERED, NOW A TOTAL JOKE
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These 12 professions that are now obsolete show how much the times have changed.
THE FALL FROM GRACE: 12 PROFESSIONS THAT WERE ONCE REVERED, NOW A TOTAL JOKE
FROM ‘OKAY BOOMER’ TO ‘UGH BOOMER’: 10 HABITS THAT IRRITATE MILLENNIALS
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Each generation has its quirks. Most label it as an “old person thing” when asked why grandpa or grandma does something unusual. The defense from the other side is that “it was the way things were back in our day.”
FROM ‘OKAY BOOMER’ TO ‘UGH BOOMER’: 10 HABITS THAT IRRITATE MILLENNIALS
