Oct 12, 2020
Archaeologists Find 3,000-Year-Old Balls in China
An international team of archaeologists has found three ancient leather balls in tombs of the prehistoric Yanghai cemetery near the modern city of Turfan in northwest China.
The ancient balls from Turfan are small, measuring between 7.4 and 9.2 cm (2.9-3.6 inches) in diameter.
The artifacts have a core of pieces of leather or hair and are enclosed in a leather case tied together with a band. Two of them are marked with a red cross on the outer leather cover.
Such balls could be used for ball games, although at the moment archaeologists cannot say what kind of game it was.
The Turfan balls were radiocarbon dated to the time interval between 1189 and 911 BCE. Read more.
