History of Martial Arts

he early history of martial arts is difficult to reconstruct. Inherent patterns of human aggression which inspire practice of mock combat (in particular wrestling) and optimization of serious close combat as cultural universals are doubtlessly inherited from the pre-human stage, and were made into an "art" from the earliest emergence of that concept. Indeed, many universals of martial art are fixed by the specifics of human physiology and not dependent on a specific tradition or era.

Specific martial arts traditions become identifiable in Classical Antiquity, with disciplines such as Gladiatorial combat, Greek wrestling or Pankration in the west and descriptions found in the Spring and Autumn Annals in China.

The earliest evidence for specifics of martial arts as practiced in the past comes from depictions of fights, both in figurative art and in early literature, besides analysis of archaeological evidence, especially of weaponry.

Wrestling is a human universal, and is also observed in other great apes, especially in juveniles. The spear has been in use since the Lower Paleolithic and retained its central importance well into the 2nd millennium AD. The bow appears in the Upper Paleolithic and is likewise only gradually replaced by the crossbow, and eventually firearms, in the Common Era. True bladed weapons appear in the Neolithic with the stone axe, and diversify in shape in the course of the Bronze Age (khopesh/kopis, sword, dagger)

detail of the wrestling fresco in tomb 15 at Beni Hasan.

One very early example is the depiction of wrestling techniques in a tomb of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt at Beni Hasan (ca. 2000 BC). An even earlier depiction of Bronze Age military equipment is depicted on the "war panel" of the Standard of Ur (ca. 2600 BC), which does however not show actual combat.

Literary descriptions of combat begin in the 2nd millennium BC, with cursory mention of weaponry and combat in texts like the Gilgamesh epic or the Rigveda. Detailed description of Late Bronze Age to Early Iron Age hand-to-hand combat with spear, sword and shield are found in the Iliad (ca. 8th century BC).

In fact, to the contrary of public perception, martial arts were not first developed in China, but rather in Mesopotamia, widely regarded as the cradle of civilisation. Written evidence (such as the Gilgamesh epic and the Rigveda mentioned above) exists which indicates that some form of weaponless fighting existed in Mesopotamia even as early as 3000 - 2300BC, much before any civilisation began to emerge in the far east.