[Aztlan] Zapotec ball court at Atzompa investigated

[Justin Kerr]

I think more has been published on ball courts and the ball game than
another other topic in Mesoamerican studies.
Given that there is a very large corpus of material (look in the FAMSI
on-line bibliography) there is plenty of discussion.
But the Maya and the Western Mexican peoples left imagery that cannot be
denied.
There is no image of any ball being hit through a ring.
There are images of two players and multiple players but are they in a ball
court or playing on a field in front of a temple?
An interesting question regarding democratization; the image of a large
group does show rather common costume as opposed to the elaborate costume of
the two and three player images. 
There seem to be images of the supernatural ball game played by the Hero
Twins against the Lords of the Otherworld; whether or not this supernatural
game was replayed by the elite may be a matter of speculation. But see The
Royal Ballgame of the Ancient Maya: An Epigrapher's View 
by Alexandre Tokovinine in the essay page
http://www.mayavase.com/articleopen.html.
As far as spectators go, images from Western Mexico show spectators sitting
on the top tier of the ball court.
For images; http://research.mayavase.com/kerrportfolio.html, enter ball* ans
click search.
Justin Kerr 
  

-----Original Message-----
From: aztlan-bounces at lists.famsi.org [mailto:aztlan-bounces at lists.famsi.org]
On Behalf Of Sven Röhrig
Sent: Wednesday, March 25, 2009 4:27 PM
To: aztlan at lists.famsi.org
Subject: Re: [Aztlan] Zapotec ball court at Atzompa investigated

Hello,

I ve a question regarding the big ballcourts...

Are they necessary ballcourts? What leads to that conclusion?

45 m long court still seems reasonable szise in relation to our modern  
ballgames. But i heard that the Maya ballgame was played in little  
teams...
and while this still works for a 50m range...
does it work on 100m?
Is the great ballcourt of chinchen itza not way to big for 10 players  
on the court?
And is it possible to get the ball thru the 9 meter high stone rings?

Was there some kind of democratisation of the game where bigger groups  
played some kind of multi ball? Means differnt teams played the court  
simultaniously...

Or has the increased szise of ballcourts something to do with a  
changed sacrificion practize?
A fair game to select the victims?
Are there any theories ore hints that show that sacreficial killing of  
players gained popularity over time?

I learned that the  Ballgame was practized for leisure and ritual  
reasons... But in which proportion?

I guess that  in a public ritual you need place for many spectators  
while for public leisure you need space for lots of players.

And i wonder why the rings in the great chinchen ballcourt are so high?
What not necessarily has to be something that has to be  related to  
nasty victim sacrificion...
An impossible goal where the players was ment to loose or just a  
symbolic goal only the very lucky can hit?
Are there common opinions regarding the role of theese big ballcourts  
in the maya world?

So in essence my question is :

Gladiator arena or big leisure field with various ballgames and  
barbeques in parallel?




In booth cases an explanation of bigger ballcourts in the subburbs  
might be to keep noise from the city center...


regrads
Sven Röhrig


Am 25.03.2009 um 18:57 schrieb michael ruggeri:

> Listeros,
>
> INAH has recently investigated the ball court at Santa Maria Atzompa.
> The ball court is 45 meters long and is the  largest court in the
> Zapotec realm. Atzompa was a satellite city of Monte Alban between
> 650-850 AD. There are 2 smaller courts at the same site. It is a
> mystery as to why so many ball courts were built outside of Monte
> Alban and why the largest ball court is found in a satellite city.


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