# data[].attributes.body
The Mayan Ball Game is a game the Mayans played that they believed to be created by the gods. Players were not allowed to use their hands, and when played professionally, the losing team often had to be sacrificed to the gods. The game was often played in front of the whole town.
A) Identify weather the Ball Game is a material or non-material culture.
B) Explain why you choose the answer you picked above.
C) Based on the information given above, explain why you think this game was taken so seriously by the Mayans.

# data[].attributes.body
A real life reenactment of the Ball Game.

# data[].attributes.body
A animated example of the Mayan Ball Game found in the movie: The Road to El Dorado.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Play Ball - Road to El Dorado, Mesoamerican ball game

# data[].attributes.headline
The Brutal and Bloody History of the Mesoamerican Ball Game, Where Sometimes Loss Was Death

# data[].attributes.subject
The Brutal and Bloody History of the Mesoamerican Ball Game, Where Sometimes Loss Was Death

# data[].attributes.body
Article #3 This article tells you about the bloody history of this game, and includes lots of pictures to give readers a visual.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Olmecs started it, the Maya tweaked it, and the Aztecs nailed it. The Mesoamerican Ballgame, played with a solid rubber ball - weighing at around 10 pounds - and teams of one to four people, makes a regular appearance throughout Pre-Columbian history. Though added later, stone ball courts have been found from Arizona to Nicaragua.

Though the exact rules of the game aren't known, it is generally believed that the game was played more or less like today's volleyball (net‐less) or racquetball. Players wore helmets, pads and thick protective yokes around their mid‐section and kept the ball in play by hitting it off their hips.

The Mesoamerican ball game makes its first appearance among the Olmec around 1500 BC in the central Gulf Coast of Mexico, an area known at the time for latex production. Many balls have been discovered in the region as part of burials and as ritual offerings at shrines, suggesting the balls and other ballgame accoutrements were a sign of status or wealth.In fact, this idea has been reinforced by the evidence of ball courts being found near chief's homes in Olmec sites. The game the Olmecs played was associated with prestige and social standing, and only the wealthy and therefore upper class could afford to put on a game. The giant stone heads found in the region also depict chiefs wearing the ball playing helmet.

The game continued to be played throughout Mesoamerica when it was adopted by the Maya, who added their own special twist. Humans and the lords of the underworld battled it out by playing the game, according to the creation story the known as the Popol Vuh. In this way, the ball court was a portal to Xibalba - the Mayan underworld. The Maya used the game as a stand‐in for warfare, settling territory disputes and hereditary issues, and to foretell the future. Captives of wars were forced to play (undoubtedly rigged) games that resulted in their sacrifice when they lost.

The Aztecs continued this proud tradition of loser‐lose‐all, as many vases and sculptures depict the inevitable decapitation of the losing team. There are even some depictions of ball players playing with the heads of the losers in place of a ball. Whether this actually occurred is up to artistic speculation. The Spanish who observed the game reported horrendous injuries to those who played it - deep bruising requiring lancing, broken bones, and even death when a player was hit in the head or by an unprotected bit by the heavy ball.

There are many of these fine ball courts one can visit today. The great ball court at Chichen Itza, built around 800 AD, is the largest and best preserved yet found. The Maya added the stone ring for bonus point opportunities, but putting the ball through the hoop was a very rare event. In fact, mayan ball courts can be explored at just about every archaeological site including: Palenque, Yaxchilan, Tikal, Uxmal, Ek Balam, Copan, and Calakmul. And while you can't do much playing now at these historic sites, a slightly less gruesome version of the game called Ulama still survives is played in Mexico today.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Brutal and Bloody History of the Mesoamerican Ball Game, Where Sometimes Loss Was Death

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Olmecs started it, the Maya tweaked it, and the Aztecs nailed it. The Mesoamerican Ballgame, played with a solid rubber ball - weighing at around 10 pounds - and teams of one to four people, makes a regular appearance throughout Pre-Columbian history. Though added later, stone ball courts have been found from Arizona to Nicaragua.

# data[].attributes.body
Article #2 This article tells you of the legends and origin of the game.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The sport known simply as the Ball Game was popular across Mesoamerica and played by all the major civilizations from the Olmecs to the Aztecs. The impressive stone courts became a staple feature of a city's sacred complex and there were often several playing courts in a single city. More than just a game, though, the event could have a religious significance and featured in episodes of Mesoamerican mythology. The contests even supplied candidates for human sacrifice, for the sport could, quite literally, be a game of life or death.

Origins

The game was invented sometime in the Preclassical Period (2500-100 BCE), probably by the Olmec, and became a common Mesoamerican-wide feature of the urban landscape by the Classical Period (300-900 CE). Eventually, the game was even exported to other cultures in North America and the Caribbean.

In Mesoamerican mythology the game is an important element in the story of the Maya gods Hun Hunahpú & Vucub Hunahpú.

In Mesoamerican mythology the game is an important element in the story of the Maya gods Hun Hunahpú and Vucub Hunahpú. The pair annoyed the gods of the underworld with their noisy playing and the two brothers were tricked into descending into Xibalba (the underworld) where they were challenged to a ball game. Losing the game, Hun Hunahpús had his head cut off; a foretaste of what would become common practice for players unfortunate enough to lose a game.

In another legend, a famous ball game was held at the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan between the Aztec king Motecuhzoma Xocoyotzin (r. 1502-1520 CE) and the king of Texcoco. The latter had predicted that Motecuhzoma's kingdom would fall and the game was set-up to establish the truth of this bold prediction. Motecuhzoma lost the game and did, of course, lose his kingdom at the hands of the invaders from the Old World. The story also supports the idea that the ball game was sometimes used for the purposes of divination.

The Court

Courts were usually a part of a city's sacred precinct, a fact which suggests the ball game was more than just a game. Early Preclassic playing courts were simple, flattened-earth rectangles but by the Late Formative Period (300 BCE onwards) these evolved into more imposing areas which consisted of a flat rectangular surface set between two parallel stone walls. Each side could have a large vertical stone ring set high into the wall. The walls could be perpendicular or sloping away from the players and the ends of the court could be left open but defined using markers or, in other layouts, a wall closed off the playing space to create an I-shaped court. The court at Monte Albán, Oaxaca is a typical example of the I-shaped court. The length of the court could vary but the 60 m long court at Epiclassic El Tajín (650-900 CE) represents a typical size.

The flat court surface often has three large circular stone markers set in a line down the length of the court. Some of these markers from Maya sites have a quatrefoil cartouche indicating the underworld entrance which has led to speculation that the game may have symbolised the movement of the sun (the ball) through the underworld (the court) each night. Alternatively, the ball may have represented another heavenly body such as the moon and the court was the world.

Surviving courts abound and are spread across Mesoamerica. The Epiclassic city of Cantona has an incredible 24 courts with at least 18 being contemporary. El Tajín also has a remarkable number of courts (at least 11) and it may well have been a sacred centre for the sport, much like Olympia for athletics in ancient Greece. The earliest known court is from the Olmec city of San Lorenzo whilst the largest surviving stone playing court is at the Mayan- Toltec city of Chichén Itzá. With a length of 146 m and a width of 36 m, this court seems almost too large to be actually played in, especially with the rings set at the demanding height of 8 m.

The Rules

The exact rules of the game are not known for certain and in all probability there were variations across the various cultures and different periods. However, the main aim was to get a solid rubber (latex) ball through one of the rings. This was more difficult than it seems as players could not use their hands. One can imagine that good players became highly skilled at directing the ball using their padded elbows, knees, thighs and shoulders. Teams were composed of two or three players and were male-only. There was also an alternative version, less-widespread, where players used sticks to hit the ball.

The ball could be a lethal weapon in itself, as measuring anywhere from 10 to 30 cm in diameter and weighing from 500 g to 3.5 kg, it could easily break bones. Remarkably, seven rubber balls have been preserved in the bogs of El Manatí near the Olmec city of San Lorenzo. These balls range from 8 to 25 cm in diameter and date from between 1600 and 1200 BCE.

The Players

Players could be professionals or amateurs and there is evidence of betting on the outcome of important games. The game also had a strong association with warriors and war captives were often forced to play the game.

Players were frequently depicted in Mesoamerican art, appearing in sculpture, ceramics and architectural decoration - the latter often decorating the courts themselves - and these depictions often show that the players wore protective gear such as belts and padding for the knees, hips, elbows and wrists. The players in these works of art also typically wear a padded helmet or a huge feathered headdress, perhaps the latter being for ceremonial purposes only. Zapotec relief stones at Dainzú also depict ball players wearing grilled helmets as well as knee-guards and gauntlets.

Winners of the game received trophies, many of which have been excavated and include hachas and palmas. A hacha was a representation of the human head (early ones might have actually been heads) with a handle attached and was used as a trophy for a winning player, a piece of ceremonial equipment or as a marker in the court itself. A palma was also most likely a trophy or element of ceremonial costume worn by ball players. They are frequently represented in stone and can take the form of arms, hands, a player or a fan-tailed bird. Other trophies for game winners include stone yokes (typically u-shaped to be worn around the waist in imitation of the protective waist gear worn by players) and hand stones, often elaborately carved. All of these trophies are frequently found in graves and are reminders of the link between the sport and the underworld in Mesoamerican mythology.

As games often had a religious significance the captain of the losing team, or even sometimes the entire team, were sacrificed to the gods. Such scenes are depicted in the decorative sculpture on the courts themselves, perhaps most famously on the South ball court at El Tajín and at Chichén Itzá, where one relief panel shows two teams of seven players with one player having been decapitated. Another ominous indicator of the macabre turn that this sporting event could take is the presence of tzompantli (the skull racks where severed heads from sacrifices were displayed) rendered in stone carvings near the ball courts. The Classic Maya even invented a parallel game where captives, once defeated in the real game, were tied up and used as balls themselves and unceremoniously rolled down a flight of steps.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The sport known simply as the Ball Game was popular across Mesoamerica and played by all the major civilizations from the Olmecs to the Aztecs. The impressive stone courts became a staple feature of a city's sacred complex and there were often several playing courts in a single city.

# data[].attributes.body
Here is an interactive site that helps you get a better understanding of the game.

# data[].attributes.body
Article #1 This article tells you about the rules of the game, and how it was played.

# data[].attributes.body
The Mayans used to play a popular sport game called The Ball Game. The goal of it was to get a ball through the hoops high in the air without using your hands. (Like the rules of soccer) It used to be played all the time, and was a big deal. Today however, as the Mayan culture starts to disappear, so is this game. (Note: Today we do not play this game ending with sacrifice)