Modern-day Turkish oil wrestling is a sports spectacle that draws approximately a thousand barefoot wrestlers covered in olive oil and stripped to the waist, wearing pants of water buffalo leather (Sansal; "Turk Fight Series"). Oil wrestling is accompanied by a large fair featuring music and celebrations, where people eat roast lamb to the accompaniment of belly dancing and traditional drum and flute music (Sansal). Oil wrestling in Turkey dates back to the Persian Era, when in 1065 B.C., the legendary wrestler Rostam engaged in it to "[save] his country from the evil forces" (Sansal).
Modern Turkish oil wrestling, however, is most likely a modern variation of the oil wrestling that occurred in ancient Greece. The "'true' Greek wrestling was something done naked and oiled," however, rather than in Buffalo leather pants (Miller 4). Noting the proximity of Greece and Turkey, it is easy to see how these countries-both in the Mediterranean region and just across the Mediterranean Sea from each other, nearly side by side, could have influenced each other's cultures. The diffusion of oil wrestling from Greece to Turkey most likely occurred during trade or other contact between the two countries. The cultural landscape of the countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea has been characterized by similarities that might be due to climate and their proximity to one another, as well as facilitated by the ease of travel via the Mediterranean Sea. The sunny Mediterranean climate made travel easier, as the heavy snowfalls typical in Europe and monsoons typical in East Asian countries do not occur there. Likewise, proximity encouraged different Mediterranean cultures to copy from one another. Had Greece and Turkey been located as far as apart as Europe and China, distance decay would have been far more acute between the countries, and they would probably have little or nothing in common culturally.
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