The Bowling History You Never Knew: Antiquity through the Tenth Pin Addition

We’ve already told you that bowling is the #1 most participated recreational sport in America, but do you know how bowling got its start? Do you know which king of England is rumored to have outlawed the sport due to his troops neglecting their duties in order to play? You’re about to find out!

In the 1930s, a British anthropologist named Sir Flinders Petrie discovered an Egyptian boy’s grave which contained a collection of objects seemingly used for a crude form of bowling. If the objects really were bowling equipment, then the sport has been around at least since 3200 BC.

William Pehle, a German historian, has asserted that bowling began in his country around 300 AD. In 1366, King Edward III supposedly refused to let his troops keep bowling, as they were deserting archery practice to play the sport (this is the king we were talking about earlier). If this is true, bowling has been popular since the 14th Century.

However, bowling did not exist then in the form that we know it today. The popular game that spread throughout Europe was actually a nine pin game. One version of the game began and is still found in Edinburgh, Scotland. The bowler swings a fingerless ball between his legs and hurls it at the pins, resulting in the player flopping onto the lane onto his stomach. Other versions of “ninepins” are still found in Western Europe. Italian bocce, French petanque and British lawn bowling are all likely related to ninepin bowling.

When European immigrants settled in America, each culture brought its own form of bowling. In early American literature, author Washington Irving mentions the game when his character Rip Van Winkle wakes to sound of “crashing ninepins.” The first permanent American bowling location was likely in NYC in the Battery area. Though the area was probably used for British lawn bowling, New Yorkers still call the plot in the middle of their financial district “Bowling Green.”

Bowling grew in popularity in America, and with its growth came some negative connotations. In 1841, Connecticut law made it illegal to operate any ninepin lanes, probably because of the extreme level of gambling rapidly becoming associated with the game. And this is where the ten pin game as we know it comes in: bowlers quickly got around the law by adding one additional pin to the game.

How did bowling go from the outlawed gambling sport to the popular and family-friendly sport that it is today? Stay tuned for part two of The Bowling History You Never Knew.

*Information and photo from this post are courtesy of http://www.bowlingmuseum.com/Visit/HistoryofBowling.aspx  and http://perfectbowling.com/bowling-history