The yard would have been filled with "skammata"pits where wrestlers and pankratiasts would have practiced. A "skamma" ("dug-up part") was an area where the soil had been turned over and covered with a thick layer of sand to provide a firm foundation for the wrestlers. Because wrestlers may have had to compete in rainy weather, there were two "skamma" in the palaestra: a dry one and a wet one. Wrestlers called the mud in the wet "skamma" "beeswax".
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