[Aztlan] Ballgame questions

[Craig]

Thank you for your responses.
   
  Pardon in advance my inability to write well in Spanish.
   
  Certainly there have been different size balls.  Depending on the century, location, and type of game (e.g. hip, forearm, bat, handstone), it is generally believed that balls ranged from 3 in/8 cm up to 8 in/20 cm. 
   
  I was wondering if there was any scholarly support for the huge balls seen on many Maya works.  Another reader directed me to a paper by Marc Zender in PALI, in which he interprets a recurring Maya ball-glyph as "handspan", a measurement.  He finds that measurement correlates with the apparent ball size on some artwork (such as the aforementioned Dallas Museum vase).  He estimates the largest ball to be 14 "handspans" or 38 in/1 m in diameter.   Zender does not, however, discuss the implications of such a large ball.  
   
  Some rough calculations, though, tell me that a solid ball that size would weigh nearly 500 kg, or over 1000 lb.  Could the Maya have built one?  I don't see why not, but it would have to be a ritual ball -- that's just too heavy to play with.
   
  Of course, it would be lighter if it were hollow.  But I don't want to speculate (much, at least in the paper) and so I was wondering about journal papers I may have missed.
   
  Anyway, sorry for the long-winded response.  
   
  And thanks for the insight, Craig
   
   
  

Lalo <lalo60 at tx.rr.com> wrote:
  With no authority other than intuition and observation, I think your 
question is on the mark. It is precisely the question I wanted to ask when 
I saw Mr. Fisher's posting. We always hear about "the Mesoamerican" 
ballgame, yet there are so many ballcourts in so many places from so many 
different epochs and cultures. Was the ballgame in what is now Arizona the 
same as the ballgame in Tula or in the many other places and times?

I look forward to any responses from a previous posting about the "I" shape. 
It is also interesting that the ballcourts vary so greatly in size, 
particularly when we so regularly describe sizes and distances relative to 
the fixed dimensions of a football field.

Ed Dawson


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bertrand Lobjois" 
To: "Craig" 
Cc: 
Sent: Friday, November 16, 2007 4:12 PM
Subject: Re: [Aztlan] Ballgame questions


Una pregunta pragmatica ? Existia una sola forma de juego de pelota ? De
acuerdo con la forma del terreno, las reglas deberian ser diferentes, asi
como el tamaño de la pelota?

What do you think about this ?

Bertrand Lobjois
Universidad de Monterrey

2007/11/15, Craig :
>
> Listeros:
>
> I have been researching the Mesoamerican ballgame and I have 2 questions
> that don't seem to be directly addressed by published research.
>
> -> What is the purpose of the "wings" (to coin a word) in the I-shaped
> ballcourt endzones? It's hard to envision a situation where the ball 
> would
> enter the wings of the end-zone -- and if it did, it would seem unlikely 
> the
> defending team would be able to return it. And yet it seems that most
> Classic era ballcourts featured these wings.
>
> -> Based on the huge size of the balls in some Maya works (e.g. Kerr's
> fine oft-reprinted photo of the Dallas vase), some authors (e.g. Heather
> Orr) state that "some scholars propose . . . " that these balls really 
> were
> that large but were hollow. It seems instead that most researchers 
> consider
> such images to be an "exaggeration" (to quote M Coe). Has any serious
> researcher ever seriously suggested (as opposed to "wondering" or
> "speculating") that the Maya used large hollow balls on occasion??
>
> Thanks in advance for any help,
> Craig Fisher
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your homepage.
> _______________________________________________
> Aztlan mailing list
> http://www.famsi.org/mailman/listinfo/aztlan
> Click here to post a message Aztlan at lists.famsi.org
> Click to view Calendar of Events
> http://research.famsi.org/events/events.php
>
>
>


-- 
Es un pedazo del alma que se arranca sin piedad.
_______________________________________________
Aztlan mailing list
http://www.famsi.org/mailman/listinfo/aztlan
Click here to post a message Aztlan at lists.famsi.org
Click to view Calendar of Events http://research.famsi.org/events/events.php






       
---------------------------------
Be a better pen pal. Text or chat with friends inside Yahoo! Mail. See how.