AW: [Aztlan] Yokes and the Mesoamerican ballgame

[Hoens]

My to cent's to the honored position, from the view of an European archeologist.
If you mean by honored position the fact that it was placed in the grave, I do agree.
But if the honoured position means the position as indicated in the grave (around the head) I wonder, if the photograph is reliable, for the following reasons (I admit, that I don't have the book at hand, so the following is speculation). 
The photograph seems old to me. Not evrey old excavation is bad, but the standards were different then. So then the layout of the bones is a mess, not one is in it's correct position, regarding the skeleton of a human. Except of the skull and mandibula. So couldn't it be, that the excavators of this time, wich at the "worst" were peasents finding the grave thougt, this would give an impressive picture to put the yoke in this position?
Best regards,
Hannes Flück
 
Hannes Flück                  061 321 98 10Davidsbodenstrasse 7          
4056 Basel                    hoensflueck at yahoo.com oder 
                              hannes.flueck at gmx.net
Snip
Listeros: T. Leyenaar & L. Parsons in their book ULAMA: THE BALLGAME OF THE 
MAYAS AND AZTECS, 2000BC - 2000AD; FROM HUMAN SACRIFICE TO SPORT 
(Amsterdam, Erasmus Press, 1988) published an interesting photograph (click 
on the URL below) showing an ancient grave apparently of a Veracruz 
ballplayer buried with a polished stone yoke framing his head like a crown. 
The yoke here is quite plain and undecorated, but its presence in this 
<b>honored position</b> in the grave would seem to indicate that the carved stone 
yoke was intended more as the symbol of the ballgame's ideological and 
social importance, 
snip

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