If you go online and search for the earliest depiction of wrestlers ever discovered, one particular cave painting will crop up numerous times.
Whether you use Google, Bing or the Chinese-made Baidu (okay, maybe not the last one.), then the answer to your question will be given as the cave paintings found in the Lascaux Cave in France.
Many online sources, including Wikipedia, list the Lascaux Cave as the cite of the earliest-dated cave paintings showing two men engaging in wrestling.
If true, then we would have to pinpoint this as the start of the history of wrestling, which would later evolve into the Catch-As-Catch Can wrestling in Britain, which transformed into the professional wrestling we all know and love today.
The Lascaux Cave Was Discovered By Four Teenagers And Their Dog
The discovery of the Lascaux Cave and its tremendous art took place on September 12, 1940. Like something out of an Enid Blyton novel, the tale told of four teenagers and the search for their missing dog. After the dog fell into a foxhole on Lascaux hill in the Dordogne region of France, they made the bold move of entering themselves to save their pooch.
After dropping stones into the hole to ascertain its depth, they made he perilous voyage into the unknown. They descended the narrow shaft deeper into the hill, where they discovered a cave that had been previously lost to time. In it, they found some of the earliest cave paintings ever discovered, shining a light on the capabilities of humanity 17,000 years previously.
The findings were extraordinary. The main cavern, 66 feet wide and 16 feet high, was adorned with art from the Upper Paleolithicperiod. This period broadly denotes around 14,000 BC to 52,000 BC, the paintings were dated to be around 15,000 BC, or 17,000 years ago.
After making their home out of the cave, its contents was studied by French archaeologist Henri-Édouard-Prosper Breuil. Breuil was renowned in his field, having been made a professor of prehistoric ethnology in Paris in 1910. He was the undisputed expert on French cave art, making him the perfect man for the job of uncovering the secrets behind these paintings.
Numerous Paintings Were Discovered In The Lascaux Cave, Although None Of Them Depicted Wrestling
Once inside the Lascaux Cave, Breuil was rewarded with over 1500 etchings and over 600 paintings. These showed both symbols and drawings of animals. These included a two-horned animal which was nicknamed a “Unicorn”, four huge aurochs, deer, cats and other creatures.
They were kept in perfect condition in the undiscovered cave.
The space was separated in numerous sections, including various passages, halls and rooms. Each seemed to have been split up into different animals, although later inspection determined that the paintings were likely made over a long period of time, potential hundreds of years apart.
However, what is not included in the magnificent art work is the first example of human’s wrestling. Only one human figure is present in the 600 paintings, and as we all know, a wrestling match needs at least two competitors. There being just one sort of spoils the claim that the first wrestling match took place in 15,000 BC.
The figure in question is also drawn with the head of a bird, and an erect phallus. Not exactly your typical wrestling attire, although I wouldn’t put it past being something Vince McMahon pitched for one of his talents to wear in the WWE during the Attitude Era.
The Earliest Paintings Of Humans Wrestling Were Found In Algeria, Dating Back To 5,000 BC
So, the claim of the Lascaux Cave paintings show the earliest depiction of two humans wrestling has been debunked. I won’t be linking the sites and Facebook pages (you know who you are) making these wild claims without evidence, but a quick Google search will find you plenty to snack on.
However, that doesn’t take away from the fact that it is still one of the oldest sports in the world, which directly evolved into professional wrestling after thousands of years, once the realisation that you could make more money and suffer less pain by simply pretending to fight each other, and fix it so the most popular man won the fight.
In fact, the earliest wrestling drawings of two men fighting likely comes from around 5,000 BC in the cave of Tassili n’Ajjer, in Algeria. Fabrizio Mori, a pioneer in Tassili rock art studies, interpreted the drawings of two naked men facing off in a boxing stance, while a third watches on, as a physical competition between them which could be viewed as the earliest wrestling match on record.
There are also claims that art found in the Bayankhongor Province contain drawings of a wrestling match, watched by a crowd, dating back to around 7,000 BC in the Neolithic age. However, like with the Lascaux Cave paintings, these seem to be unsubstantiated and repeated, sans evidence.
