conisterion

plural conisterions · alternative conisterium

1. archaeologyA room in ancient Greek and Roman gymnasiums where athletes, particularly wrestlers, applied sand or dust to their bodies after being anointed with oil. This practice enhanced grip during matches by counteracting the slipperiness caused by oil and sweat.

   The Conisterion, from sand, it being the place in which the bodies of the wrestlers were sanded.

   1862, EDWARD FALKENER, EPHESUS and THE TEMPLE OF DIANA., page 62

   1 more example

   Prodigious ruins of walls, which formerly were all coated with marble, still point out the two temples, the two ephebea, the places where youths exercised themselves in the gymnastic games, the place for the wrestlers, the piscina, or the pool for the swimmers, different divisions for the houses of the superintendants, the apodyterion, or place where the wrestlers undressed, the conisterion, or place where the wrestlers, after being anointed with oil, were sprinkled with dust, the heliafterion, or place where they sunned themselves, the vestibulum, which was a rotunda, the baths, which consisted of cold, lukewarm, warm, and sweating baths, the theatre, two libraries, one Greek and one Latin, the course for racing, the place for playing at ball, a place which formerly was planted with the plane tree, and exedræ, for poets, philofophers, and rhetoricians.

   1796, FREDERIC LEOPOLD COUNT STOLBERG, translated by THOMAS HOLCROFT, TRAVELS through GERMANY, SWITZERLAND, ITALY, and SICILY., translation of original in German, page 421