A Study of Quantitative Condition and Application of Sport Equipments in Military-Sport Activities in Ancient Iran

One of the methods to recognize the national sports background and roots and also to maintain historical and cultural nature of sports is to study different dimensions of military – athletic activities in ancient Iran. Therefore, the purpose of the present study is to distinguish a variety of sports equipment and fields in ancient Iran. We used the verses of ferdosi’s “Shahnameh” as sample. The results of this study indicated that, among 13 military – athletic pieces of equipment repeated 3571 times in “Shahnameh”, sword and bow and arrow with respectively 26% and 20% repetitions formed the most important martial – athletic Iranian pieces of equipment. Among 7 sports repeated 374 times in “Shahnameh” hunting, walking, and polo respectively with 30%, 25% and 11% repetitions were the most important physical activities.Among 6 drills in sports, the most important was wrestling, which skill of chest to chest with 80% of repetiotions was in the first rank. Inaddition, after studying the military-athletic characteristics in “Shahnameh”, it was indicated that among 4755 repetitions of these characteristics, horse riding with 23% repetitions gained the first rank. The results of this study indicate that Iranians use a variety of skills, and apply different eqipments and drills in military-athletic activities.