On 28
August 2021, I posted a column titled “T-Shaped
Doorways, Ballcourts, Pipettes, and the Wind” (Faris 2021) which postulated
a relationship between the rock art symbols known as pipettes, Ancestral Pueblo
T-shaped doorways, the Mayan character for wind, and Mesoamerican ballcourts.
Ballcourt petroglyph from El Gentil site. Photograph Alex Badillo, Figure 6A. page 12.
Now, a
concentration of thirty petroglyphs representing the ballcourts themselves has
been recorded in Mexico on the north slope of the Sierra Sur. Representations
of ballcourts carved in stone have been found throughout a large area of
Mesoamerica but this column will visit the thirty newly discovered ones near
Quiechapa.
Contour diagram of a cluster of Ballcourt petroglyphs. Diagram by Alex Badillo, from Figure 8. page 15.
“During an archaeological survey in
the municipality of San Pedro Martir Quiechapa, Oaxaca, Mexico, archaeologists
from the Proyecto Arqueologico de Quiechapa (PAQuie) encountered and documented
a number of carved stone elements. Of particular interest are the 30
representations of ballcourts carved into natural rock outcrops at two sites in
the region. This is the highest density in which this type of ballcourt
representation occurs throughout Mesoamerica.” (Badillo 2022)
Contour diagram of Ballcourt petroglyph from El Gentil site. Diagram by Alex Badillo, from Figure 10. page 18.
These
carved ballcourts were found in two groupings. At a location named El Gentil,
twenty-two carved ballcourts measured from 8.0 cm to 34.1 cm in length. (p. 13)
Eight more carved ballcourts were identified at a location named El
Derrumbadero, with more considered possible ballcourts but too eroded for
positive identification.
“It’s not clear what the carvings
were used for, but the researchers suggested that ancient Mesoamericans may
have used them for rituals. The Spanish priest Juan Ruiz de Alarcon (lived 1581
to 1639), who lived in what is now Mexico following Spain’s conquest of the
area in the 16th century, ‘describes certain rituals during which a
[Mesoamerican] priest would have people spill blood into small cavities that
they had made in stone,’ Badillo wrote in the study, noting that those cavities
could include the ballcourt carvings.”
(Jarus 2022) This is not the fallback designation of “ritual or ceremonial” for
any feature not immediately understood so often indulged in by archaeologists.
This is, in fact, a very reasonable proposition given the ritual and ceremonial
nature of the hipball game played in the large architectural ballcourts. This
could, of course, be tested with blood protein residue testing.
"The Classic Maya ballgame was far more than a frivolous sport: it was, rather, a ritual correlation of war and human sacrifice. - the Classic Maya confirm the nature of the ballgame by the emphasis chosen in their ballgame art and inscriptions: in that art, they saw the ballgame as part of a larger ritual cycle, with a focus on huan sacrifice." (Miller and Houston 1987:63)
Mayan Ballcourt from Monte Alban, view from above. From Badillo, Figure 6B, page 12.
"The association between human sacrifice and the ballgame appears rather late in the archaeological record, no earlier than the Classic era. The association was perticularly strong within the Classic Veracruz and the Maya cultures, where the most explicit of human sacrifice can be seen in the ballcourt panels - for example at El Tajin (850-1100 CE) and at Chichen Itza (900-1200 CE) - as well as on the decapitated ballplayer stelae from the Classic Veracruz site of Aparicio (700-900 CE). The Postclassic Maya religious and quasi-historical narrative, the Popol Vuh, also links human sacrifice with the ballgame. Captives were often shown in Maya art, and it is assumed that these captives were sacrificed after losing a rigged ritual ballgame." (Wikipedia)
So the range of these sacrifices ranged from auto-da-fe in which a participant let some of his own blood as a sacrifice to the gods, to the death by execution of a prisoner. We are told that the gods needed regular infustions of blood to keep the world operating in order.
"These seemingly inert stone carvings in Quiechapa's landscape may have been part of deeply meaningful and active social performances that included ritual bloodletting for many possible purposes, including mainting balance and agricultural fertility, marking important moments in time, or fomenting intra- and inter-community bonds. However, further studies that attempt to understand the details of these fitual performances are required to go beyond the hypothetical understanding of these features. In the end, many more questions are left unanswered about the meaning of these carvings and how they were understood and used in the pre-Hispanic past by the prople who lived in rural Quiechapa on the northern slope of the Sierra Sur region." (Badillo 2022:27-8)
As I stated above, whether or not sacrificial blood was ever deposited in these ballcourt-shaped carvings could be relatively easily determined with blood protein residue testing of the kind that is performed on stone tools. It would be really interesting to find out on way or another.
Ballcourt at Toninas, Chiapas, Mexico. Illustration from latinamericanstudies.org.
Another aspect of the ritual significance of the Maya ballgame has recently presented itself in excavations at Tonina. "Tonina, meaning 'house of stone' in the Tzeltal language was originally called Po'p, Po or Popo in Classic Maya texts. The city is located in the Chiapas highlands of southern Mexico, east of the town of Ocosingo. The site contains two groups of temple-pyramids set on terraces rising some 71 metres above a central plaza, two ballcourts, and over 100 carved monuments that mainly date from the 6th century through to the 9th centuries AD during the classic period." (HeritageDaily 2022)
In one of the larger temple pyramids researchers discovered a crypt in 2020. A labrynth containing a series of small vaults and rooms connected by stairways led to an antechamber and the crypt at a depth of 8 meters inside the pyramid and dating from the 7th and 8th centuries AD. "The antechamber and crypt have small niches where the researchers found more than 400 vessels filled with organic material such as human ashes, charcoal, rubber and roots. A miicroscopic analysis of the organic material revealed that the human ashes (likely the remains of high-ranking people or Maya rulers) was used in the vulcanization process for hardening rubber, used for making balled used in Maya ritual ball games played in the ballcourts at Tonina." (HeritageDaily 2022)
The discovery that the ball itself used in the sacred Maya ballgame is created with the ashes of sacred ancestors gives a whole new level of meaning to the ritual importance of the game and the rites associated with it.
NOTE: Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.
REFERENCES:
Badillo, Alex Elvis, 2022, Ballcourt Representations in Quiechapa, Oaxaca, Mexico: Ritual Offerings, Fertility, and Life, 11 January 2022, Cambridge University Press (online), https://www.cambridge.org
Faris, Peter, 2021, T-Shaped Doorways, Ballcourts, Pipettes, and the Wind, RockArtBlog, https://rockartblog.blogspot.com/search/label/pipettes
HeritageDaily, 2022, Maya crypt contains cremation burials used for making rubber balls in ritual ball games, 2 August 2022, accessed 2 August 2022.
Jarus, Owen, 2022, Ancient ritual bloodletting may have been performed at carvings found in Mexico, 3 May 2022, https://www.livescience.com, accessioned 4 May 2022.
Miller, Mary Ellen, and Stephen D. Houston, 1987, The Classic Maya Ballgame and its Architectural Setting, Academia.edu
Wikipedia, Mesoamerican Ballgame, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesoamerican_ballgame. Accessed on 18 June 2022.
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