[Aztlan] Ball game question

[Pedro de Eguiluz]

"I ve a question regarding the big ballcourts...

Are they necessary ballcourts? What leads to that conclusion?"

Sven Röhrig


Dear Sven

In my humble opinion, ball courts where  the spiritual astronomical center of the temple/city, 
in Classic Nawatl it is called Tlachko, from tlaktli - "ball game" and ko-"place"; Tlaktli comes 
from the root "Tlak" that means "center", so Tlachko Ball court literali means "in the center".  
Another important cosmological use for this root is Tlakotlampa the fifth point, the center 
where the other 4 integrate : East Tlawistlampa the way of the light, North Miktlampa the 
way of the death, West Siwatlampa the way of wemen and South Witztlampa the way of 
the energy. This center conects to the vertical wheel down to Miktlampa "The 9 ways of 
the death" and up to the Topan "The 13 ways over us"

The mesoamerican cities, specially the oldest ones where design using this center as 
a reference. The Tlachko has 4 corners this would divided the city in 4. In first instance a 
Tlachko is an exclente palce to observe the stars. The temples would then represent an 
celestial observatory and would create a virtual center of the universe. We can see this 
very clearly in a picture from National Geographic of the city center of "San Lorenzo" from 
the air. We can see the long sides and the big temple in the head. The orientation of this 
Tlachko determines most of the other buldings, as we can see in Monte Alban, that actually
 it´s hole estructure of buildings forms a gigantic Ball Court. In la Venta we can see a 
similar lay-out, as Malsmtrom said it´s orientation is deviated 15,5 degrees so it marks the 
cenital passes of the sun on the Latitud of Copan and Izapa the 30 of April and the 13 of August. 
We know this conects the site archeoastronomicaly with the natural 260 day cicle in Mesoamérica. 
Another very important site at this 15 degrees is Paso de la Amada, Chiapas, the oldest 
Ball court found to this date, from around 1400bc. This site has a rectangular place or temple 
for reunion from about the 1800bc. 

La venta itself is constructed on a very important calendaric latitud 18 degrees, this is 
the same latitud of Teopantecuanitlan where we find the second oldest Ball Court from 
around 1200bc.  Acording to the CUAN correlation studied by Frank Diaz, the Tonalli 
or day of the first cenital pass of the year  in that area named the year, this day was12 
of May at the Postclasic, currently the 16 of May. The Tonalli / Kin / Day of the second 
cenital pass in this same area gives name to the Mayan solar calendar the Haab. 
So this huge Tlachko, La Venta is an astronomical marker.

Here we can see a picture of the Chichenitza ball court. http://archaeologica.boardbot.com/viewtopic.php?t=2001 
Its a great place where many people could gather to precense astronomical fenomena.
 
The houses and other public places like the Temazkal where desing using the same 
lay-out the rectangle, they also used the circle and exentrics ones, but the center of 
everything was the Tlachko. Recently i saw in this famsi web site  a estudy from 
Joyce Marcus and Kent Flannery of Gheo Shih http://www.famsi.org/reports/03006es/section03.htm, 
where we can see the earliest temple on Mesoamérica or "two 20 meters lines 
of rocks separeted by 7 meters and rotated 24 degrees right to the east". Dated 
6650bc and located a few kms southeast of MonteAlban and San Jose Mogote 
at a latitud close to 16.9N. I belive this sets of rock show the minimal necesary 
to belive, this arcaic temple,is orientate  towards an astronomic event and has 
the form of a Tlachko.  There is another important site Acapulco located at the 
same lattitud around 19.9N,  where we find one of the oldest ceramics in Mesoamérica 
and there is evidence of maturity of the mesoamerican calendar, we can find 
on pretroglyph rows of drops of 20, 9, 7, 4 and 18, that could be easily used 
with sead to make counts.In acapulco we also find the posible long count date 
and Year Name 3 Monkey. It would be very interesting if someone could find 
an astronómical event related to this área. 

Another important reference of the nawatl word  is Tlaktli is the upper part of 
the human body. This is related to the word Matlaktli Ten meaning both hands, 
the upper par of the body. This meaning of tlaktli produced in the Cholula area 
an equivalent of Tlatoani"He who speaks or Who has the word" the social lider 
of the people. In Cholula they used Tlakniach "The first one of the upper part of 
the body" from Tlaktli, ni "he who" and achto first. The other rank that was similar 
to the Tlatoani but refered to a hidden agenda was the Siwakoatl "Female Serpent" 
the spiritual lider of the people; the equivalent for the Cholula is Tlaniach "The first one 
of the lower part of the body" Tlani refers to the lower part of the body. The name 
cholula is related to the people of the ancient knowledgem, so we can imply 
this Ranks are very old.

I belive the Tlachko is fisical representation of the social and spiritual body of one 
group of people, inspired by the human body. When the tlachko is used as an 
astronomical observatory or a ritual game area, the place is activated and conects 
the Human to the Gods the Stars. The intermediary of this two aspects of nature is 
the sun, simbol of the liberated spiritual lider, with his two aspects the day Ketsalkoatl 
and the night Tezkatlipoka. The Tlatoani is the lider of the Tonal or visible side of this 
dual mesoamerican proposal, the Siwakoatl deals with the Nawal or hidden aspects 
of this highly magical culture.

Regards

Pedro