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".