Bowling Invented in Ancient Egypt?

Discovery Channel (Rossella Lorenzi)

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Throwing stone balls along a lane might have been a popular game in ancient Egypt, according to evidence unearthed some 56 miles south of Cairo by Italian archaeologists. A mixture of bowling, billiard and bowls, the game was played at Narmoutheos, in the Fayoum region, in a spacious room which appears to be the prototype of a modern-day bowling hall. The room was part of a structure, perhaps a residential building, which dated from the Roman period, specifically between the second and third century A.D. "We first discovered a room with a very well-built limestone floor. Then we noticed a lane and two stone balls," Edda Bresciani, an Egyptologist at Pisa University, told Discovery News.

Daily India

A mixture of bowling, billiard and bowls, the game was played at Narmoutheos, in the Fayoum region, in a spacious room, which appears to be the prototype of a modern-day bowling hall, said Edda Bresciani, an Egyptologist at Pisa University, Italy. Bresciani said the room was part of a structure, perhaps a residential building, which dated from the Roman period, specifically between the second and third century A.D."We first discovered a room with a very well-built limestone floor. Then we noticed a lane and two stone balls," Discovery News quoted Bresciani as saying.