Often located centrally in ancient Maya cities (Miller and Houston 1987: 53), the architecture of ballcourts was highly public, positioned either in an open plaza or in close proximity to a pyramid or acropolis (Cohodas 1991: 254). The highly public nature of ballcourts suggests that the game was an important ritual activity among the general population and the upper echelon in Maya society (see Fash 1991: 126). Generally comprising two parallel rectangular structures (Miller and Taube 1993: 43) oriented north-south, the ballcourt functioned as an arena for a game played with a large rubber ball. Both sides of a ballcourt comprised a vertical or inward sloping wall (Kubler 1985: 244), probably designed as a rebounding surface to keep the ball in play. The main playing surface was the alley in between the parallel structures, which was set at ground level; the end zones of the court were generally left open (Miller and Houston 1987: 47; Cohodas 1991: 254).
Although the precise rules remain unclear, depictions of the ball game in Maya art indicate that the principal objective of the game was to keep the ball airborne or in play, using nothing but the hips or torso. It is probable that advantage was achieved by driving the ball into either end of the court or by sending the ball through small hoops placed high up on the walls. Participants wore impact protection around their waists, padded belts in the Maya lowlands and open-ended “yokes” (heavy belts tied over a softer lining) in the southern highlands
(Ekholm 1991: 241-245). In addition, players wore padding on their forearms and knees to prevent injury when dropping beneath the ball. Tilted or kneeling posture in ball-game imagery is suggestive of an individual about to return a ball into play (Cohodas 1991: 251). There are several ball-game-related glyphs, one of which reads pitz, meaning “to play ball”; this glyph was also used as an elite title (see Miller and Houston 1987: 60-63).
The ball game was as a highly ritualised gladiatorial-type conflict, where losers may have been executed or sacrificed. The ballcourt was a “theater showing the reenactment of a cosmic conflict between gods that manifested as sun and the planet Venus” (Miller and Houston 1987: 47). Mesoamerican ballcourts were large and highly decorated (as seen at sites such as Copan and Chichen Itza) or small and relatively plain (as seen at Palenque). In addition to the presence of architectural embellishment, round markers were often placed in the floor of ball-courts. Carved from stone, these markers often displayed Underworld scenes and corresponding hieroglyphic texts. Cohodas argues that “taken together, the axial orientation, absence of end zones, and [the] line of three markers in the Classic Maya courts emphasize architectural symbolism of the world axis which demarcates a cosmological passage through the earth’s surface into the Underworld” (Cohodas 1991: 254).
World History
