In anticipation of Super Bowl Sunday, I thought it only
appropriate to finish my tour of Tula at the ball courts. Tula’s archaeological zone boasts two ball
courts. These low cobble-walled depressions
consist simply of a long central alleyway capped at both ends by perpendicular endzones. The effect is an I-shaped playing field.
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Tula Ball Court
From abrock.com |
The origins of the ball game date back to the 1st
millennium BC with the Olmec culture who discovered the elasticity of the latex
they collected from the rubber trees.
The ball game grew to be a staple throughout Mesoamerica, from the early
Olmecs to the pre-conquest Aztecs. It
may surprise you to know that the ball game is still being played today in
parts of north-western Mexico!
The rules of the game varied slightly from site to site, but
essentially, two teams battled it out on the ball courts, directing a solid
rubber ball into their opponents half of the court without letting it hit the
ground. The catch – the players could
not use their hands or feet.
Unlike our modern game of Football (unless you want to
consider Tim Tebow’s influence) the Mesoamerican ball game had great religious
significance. According to independent
Mesoamerican researcher, John Major Jenkins, the ball game also had tremendous
cosmological symbolism. And unlike
Football (thankfully), the losing team of the ball game were often sacrificed
or decapitated and their heads strung on skull racks called tzompantlis. The demolished remains of a tzompanti has
even been found in Tula, which shouldn’t surprise us coming from a culture that
celebrated Team Tezcatlipoca’s victory over Team Quetzalcoatl!
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Depiction of Tzompantli in Chichen Itza
From Crystalinks.com |
