The game of bocce ball is a very enjoyable game. It has been played for years and will surely continue to remain a popular outdoor game. Here is some more information on this fun game. The game of bocce is normally played on a court made of oyster shells but it can also be played on granite, soil or asphalt. The courts may range is size but a typically around 11 feet by 80 feet long.

The bocce balls themselves can be composed of either metal, wood, stone, or different types of plastic. This game is normally played by teams with 1 to 4 players. The object of the game is for players to toss the bocce ball as close as possible to the Pallino. The winner is determined by the team which achieves 11, 12, or 13 points (may vary depending upon where the game is played). The Pallino is a small ball which serves as a target. For team play, someone is chosen to throw the pallino. They the players begin to throw their bocce ball with intention of getting it as close to the pallino as possible.

Once all the players have thrown their bocce ball, a point is awarded for every bocce ball which is closer to the pallino than the closest bocce ball of the opposing team. The game has been around for thousands of years. As a matter of fact, a painting from 5200 BC documents people playing a version of this game. It was discovered in an Egyptian tomb. The game was popular with the ancient Greeks who then transferred it to the Romans. It was played by the entire citizenry and remained very popular for many years.

These Greeks introduced bocce to what is now modern Italy. The game became so popular that it was threatened with prohibition since people playing the game in the streets were hitting the knees of noblemen. However it introduced the game to these noblemen where is became an instant hit with the high society as well as lower populace and it became more and more popular. The game has gained and lost popularity over the years. However it remains a very popular game. As a matter of fact, there are over 25,000,000 players of this game worldwide. So the sport which began as a crude sport played with rounded stones or even coconuts has evolved into the refined and popular sport it is today.

Australian boomerangs are the most famous since they are the best preserved specimens, some of which are ten thousand years old. The oldest boomerang found was in Olazowa Cave in Poland. Made out of a Mammoth tusk, it is has been dated to be about 30,000 years old.

Historians are not sure when the first boomerangs were developed, since they require careful construction to get the delicate balancing right so the stick will return. They speculate that the flat throw stick used by early hunters was the ancestor of the boomerang and accidentally “discovered” by a hunter fine-tuning his throw stick, probably somewhere in the Orient. Not only used for hunting, the boomerang was a useful weapon for ancient cultures that had yet to invent bows and arrows. There is historical evidence of the Greeks using boomerangs as weapons, called “clavas” or “stick”, it was even used by the mighty Hercules in the ancient stories. The Romans used spears instead of boomerangs, but they have records of fighting against the Gauls and Teutons (considered the French, Spanish, and Germanic people.)

Historically and currently, boomerangs have been used for combat. Often a combat boomerang is not intended to return to its user, instead it is used as a club or basic throwing stick much like the ancient cultures first used it. Often boomerangs were considered a “weapon of the gods” and many cultures from the ancient Babylonian kings to Brazilian sorcerers have used them as “royal badges and signs of favor from the gods.”

According to Wikipedia, “Boomerangs can be variously used as hunting weapons, percussive musical instruments, battle clubs, fire-starters, decoys for hunting waterfowl, and as recreational play toys.” Almost any material can be used to make a boomerang. Wood, metal, carbon fiber, plastic, and ivory are all just a few of the textiles boomerangs have been made from. In 1997 the smallest boomerang was thrown by Sadir Kattan for the Australian National Boomerang Championships. It measured 1.8 inches long and 1.77 inches wide and flew a distance of sixty-five and a half feet before returning. The largest boomerang was made by Gerhard Walter of Austria in 2008 and was named the “Flying Bigfoot – Highlander.” This boomerang measured 8.49 feet and flew over twenty-five meters.