A conisterium (or conisterion) ( el, κονιστἠριον) was an apartment in

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

and

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...

gymnasiums. It was where

sand Sand is a granular material composed of finely divided mineral particles. Sand has various compositions but is defined by its grain size. Sand grains are smaller than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a textural class of s ...

dust Dust is made of fine particles of solid matter. On Earth, it generally consists of particles in the atmosphere that come from various sources such as soil lifted by wind (an aeolian process), volcanic eruptions, and pollution. Dust in homes ...

was stored, for use by wrestlers after they had been anointed with oil. They would either sprinkle it on themselves, or a slave would do it. The purpose of this was so that during a fight, the oil or sweat would not prevent a wrestler from having a good grip on his opponent. After a fight, or exercise, the powder was rubbed off with

strigil The strigil ( el, στλεγγίς, translit=stlengis, probably a loanword from Pre-Greek substrate) is a tool for the cleansing of the body by scraping off dirt, perspiration, and oil that was applied before bathing in Ancient Greek and Roman cu ...

s, before the wrestler had a bath. The conisterium was built after the ''coryceum'' and next to a cold bath called ''frigida lavatio''. Conisteriums were also found in

palaestra A palaestra ( or ; also (chiefly British) palestra; grc-gre, παλαίστρα) was any site of an ancient Greek wrestling school. Events requiring little space, such as boxing and wrestling, took place there. Palaestrae functioned both indep ...

s. In the palaestra of

Vitruvius Vitruvius (; c. 80–70 BC – after c. 15 BC) was a Roman architect and engineer during the 1st century BC, known for his multi-volume work entitled ''De architectura''. He originated the idea that all buildings should have three attribute ...

, for instance, the gymnasium chambers were built on the right side while the ''elaeothesium'', ''tepidarium'', and an unidentified chamber on the left.

References

External links

* Ancient Greek architecture Ancient Roman architecture Sport in ancient Greece Gymnasiums (ancient Greece) Sand Wrestling {{architecture-stub