The origins of boxing can be traced back to the Ancient Mesopotamia from the Sumerian civilization. The earliest known depiction of boxing comes from a Sumerian relief from the early third or second millennium BCE. It depicts two men without gloves, facing each other with their arms bent and fists clinched. Other ancient cultures boxed bare fisted and the Minoans appear to be the first civilization to use boxing gloves. Boxing first appeared in the Olympics at the 23rd Olympiad in 688 BCE and the boxers wound leather thongs around their hands for protection. Modern boxing evolved from 16th and 18th-century prizefights in Great Britain.
