Researchers dig up 3,400-year-old ball courts in Mexico

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 Of all the inventions and infrastructure ancient Mesoamerican societies are famous for, one striking relic appears again and again. The ball courts — alleys of playing field defined by mounds running the length of the pitch — emerge from Aztec and Mayan ruins and art.

Archaeologists have found a new Mesoamerican ball court in a field in what is now Oaxaca, Mexico, likely constructed between about 1400 and 1300 BC.

At first, the team didn’t know what they were excavating, Salazar Chávez says. It took a year of digging to realize they were uncovering two ball courts, one above the other. The finds had the classic shape of a field — a strip of playing area, flanked by elevated seating plateaus. Outside those, mounds rose to encompass the entire rectangular setup.

Those features gave away the site, but other remains found on the fields made it clear they’d uncovered a cultural hotspot. Whistles made to look like men dressed in belts and loincloths worn during the game scattered the field, along with animal bones, shells and other signs of ceremony.

The ball game wasn’t just for fun — it had religious and political uses as well. To see that settlements previously considered to be less sophisticated were able to create the court, Salazar Chávez says, carries heavy cultural weight. “It’s dealing with innovating aspects and traits that are later thought of as quintessential,” he says. 

Source: https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/ancient-ball-court-shakes-up-researchers-perceptions-of-mesoamerican-culture

[MonsterPaws 2,745]

Incredible. Mesoamerican history is so fascinating to me. I'm Middle Eastern and while obviously middle eastern history is very rich as well there's something so amazing and wonderful about mesaoamerican history.

I still feel sad whenever I hear about what happened to Tenochititlan in the same vain as Baghdad. So much cultural heritage lost to colonizations/invasions.