Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
One of the common links of the Mayan culture of Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and Belize is the game played with a rubber ball, about which we have learned from several sources. [1] The Maya ballgame was played with big stone courts. The ball court itself was a focal point of Maya cities and symbolized the city's wealth and power.
Ceramic sculpture from a Western Mexican tomb showing players engaged in the Mesoamerican ballgame. A Mesoamerican ballcourt (Nahuatl languages: tlachtli) is a large masonry structure of a type used in Mesoamerica for more than 2,700 years to play the Mesoamerican ballgame, particularly the hip-ball version of the ballgame. [1]
The ball used in the ancient handball or stick-ball game was probably slightly larger and heavier than a modern-day baseball. [41] [42] Some Maya depictions, such as this relief, show balls 1 m (3 ft 3 in) or more in diameter. Academic consensus is that these depictions are exaggerations or symbolic, as are, for example, the impossibly unwieldy ...
The Great Ball Court. Archeologists have identified in Chichen Itza thirteen ballcourts for playing the Mesoamerican ballgame, [53] but the Great Ball Court about 150 meters (490 ft) to the north-west of the Castillo is the most impressive. It is the largest and best preserved ball court in ancient Mesoamerica. [44]
A solid rubber ball used (or similar to those used) in the Mesoamerican ballgame, 300 BCE to 250 CE, Kaminaljuyu. The ball is 3 inches (almost 8 cm) in diameter, a size that suggests it was used to play a handball game. Behind the ball is a manopla, or handstone, which was used to strike the ball, 900 BCE to 250 CE, also from Kaminaljuyu.
When the Maya played games in the Ballcourts, the ball was made of solid rubber and was sometimes as much as a foot in diameter. It was passed between teams ranged on opposite ends of the court. The players could hit it only with their knees or hips, much like football or soccer today.
Get AOL Mail for FREE! Manage your email like never before with travel, photo & document views. Personalize your inbox with themes & tabs. You've Got Mail!
One of the ball courts at the site. The site covers about 12 square kilometers. For study purposes it was divided into three large units. The southern part is the best preserved part. The Acropolis (area where the main structures are located, believed to be the shelter of political, economic and religious powers), is a good example of the ...