Ancient World Review

Did The Maya Really Sacrifice Their Ballgame Players?

According to new research, the scenario described in this video may not be accurate.

"Imagine a crowd roaring as royalty take to the ball court, rubber ball in hand in a sport so spectacular, it symbolized good versus evil. The ballgame played by the Maya, Aztec and neighboring cultures is famous for its ubiquity in Mesoamerica before interloping Europeans shut it down. But many mysteries and misconceptions continue to dog people's understanding of the game." Source: Live Science.

"For instance, did the game's winners or losers get sacrificed at the end of the game? And were the hoops on the ball courts treated like modern-day basketball nets?

"The answer to both questions is no; the players were most likely not sacrificed, and the ball wasn't meant to go through the hoop, although it likely happened from time to time, said Christophe Helmke, an associate professor at the Institute of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies at the University of Copenhagen."

Note: "The Mesoamerican ballgame was a sport with ritual associations played since 1400 BC by the pre-Columbian people of Ancient Mesoamerica. The sport had different versions in different places during the millennia, and a newer more modern version of the game, ulama, is still played in a few places by the indigenous population." (Wikipedia)

This modern version of the game looks like a more restricted form of soccer. Some human sacrifices would probably liven it up.

Comment: I'm not sure how reliable this new research is. There does seem to be solid archaeological evidence for human sacrifice at these ball games:

"The association between human sacrifice and the ballgame appears rather late in the archaeological record, no earlier than the Classic era. The association was particularly strong within the Classic Veracruz and the Maya cultures, where the most explicit depictions of human sacrifice can be seen on the ballcourt panels — for example at El Tajín (850–1100 CE) and at Chichen Itza (900–1200 CE) — as well as on the well-known decapitated ballplayer stelae from the Classic Veracruz site of Aparicio (700–900 CE). The Postclassic Maya religious and quasi-historical narrative, the Popol Vuh, also links human sacrifice with the ballgame." (Wikipedia)

Ultimately the question seems to boil down to how you interpret the archaeological evidence:

"In addition to the association between the game and the gory Popol Vuh, this 'human sacrifice' myth [?] stems from artwork on some ball courts featuring skulls and bones. 'But the question is, 'Are those references to the underworld and that mythical event? Are they supposed to be taken literally?' I think it's an open question,' Helmke said." (Live Science)

The Ancient Maya & Human Sacrifice

I'm not sure who produced this hilariously lurid documentary or when it was made.

"For a long time, it was commonly held by Mayanist [sic] experts that the 'pacific' Maya of Central America and southern Mexico did not practice human sacrifice (1). However, as more images and glyphs have come to light and been translated, it appears that the Maya frequently practiced human sacrifice in religious and political contexts." Source: Thought Company.

"Sacrifices played a vital part in Maya ritualism. Animals such as iguanas, crocodiles, turtles, dogs, peccaries, jaguars, and turkeys were occasionally sacrificed, and ... these offerings involved either whole animals -- alive, freshly killed, or cooked -- or in some cases only their hearts. But the supreme sacrifice was human life itself, and all too frequently humans were consigned to be slaughtered in the course of elaborate rituals." -- Maya, the Riddle and Rediscovery of a Lost Civilization, Charles Gallenkamp, Third Revised Edition, 1985, p. 109.

(1) "The prevalent theory on the ancient Maya at the beginning of the 20th century held on to the notion that they had a predominantly peaceful society, idealizing the indigenous culture much like a noble savage. This view erroneously shifted as the result of poorly documented analysis of iconography and the content of Maya script." Source: Wikipedia.

Comment: The myth of the Noble Savage living a peaceful life in harmony with nature and his neighbors has the distinction of being wrong in every case that I'm aware of. It may not be the worst idea ever conceived, but it's definitely one of the most inaccurate.

The Drought Theory Of The Collapse Of Classic Maya Civilization

Video from 2015. Ancient Apocalypse was a 2001 BBC documentary series.

Note: "Dick Gill [featured in the documentary] was a most unusual person to put forward a bold new theory explaining the collapse of Mayan civilisation. When he started his hunt for clues, he was actually a banker." Source: BBC (2011). Gill spend a considerable amount of time investigating his theory that a major drought led to the collapse and believed that he had found conclusive evidence that this is what had happened:

"The drought theory holds that rapid climate change in the form of severe drought brought about the Classic Maya collapse. According to the particular version put forward by Gill in The Great Maya Droughts ... '[Studies of] Yucatecan lake sediment cores ... provide unambiguous evidence for a severe 200-year drought from AD 800 to 1000 ... the most severe in the last 7,000 years ... precisely at the time of the Maya Collapse." (Wikipedia)

The drought theory seems to be widely accepted now. LIDAR scans support the theory, according to Wikipedia, and Gill's evidence is apparently pretty solid -- I haven't found any sources questioning the evidence itself. Still, it's possible that drought may not be enough to explain what actually happened.

"David Webster, a critic of [Gill's] megadrought theory, says that much of the evidence provided by Gill comes from the northern Yucatán and not the southern part of the peninsula, where Classic Maya civilization flourished. He also states that if water sources were to have dried up, then several city-states would have moved to other water sources. That Gill suggests that all water in the region would have dried up and destroyed Maya civilization is a stretch, according to Webster, although Webster does not have a precise competing theory explaining the Classic Maya Collapse." (Wikipedia)

Earthquakes may have played a big part in the collapse as well:

"A study published in Scientific Reports in 2016 showed that between 750 and 900 a cluster of four earthquakes affected the wet tropical mountains south of the Yucatán lowlands, which are not vulnerable to drought, and include such important cities as Quirigua and Copán. These earthquakes left detectable destruction in several Maya cities and led to the abandonment of Quirigua. The study hypothesizes that repeated destruction combined with declining trade with the Maya kingdoms of the Yucatán lowlands to propagate the collapse to the southern part of the Maya realm." (Wikipedia)

Related: Scientists Measure Severity Of Drought During The Maya Collapse

Drugs In Early Americas Included Magic Mushrooms And Toad Skins

"From hallucinogenic mushrooms and cacti to alcohol-infused enemas and psychoactive dried toad skins, the array of consciousness-altering substances that people in the early Americas used was wider than thought, a new report suggests." Source: Live Science.(2014)

Note: "At least 54 hallucinogenic mushrooms in the genus Psilocybe were used by pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures, and those mushroom species can still be found today in Mexico, according to the report. Psilocybin is the hallucinogenic compound in these mushrooms that produces mind-altering effects."

Aztec Allies Ritually Disfigured Remains Of Captured Spaniards

Spanish only, unfortunately. Video shows the ruins of Zultepec / Tecoaque (see below).

"New research suggests an Aztec-allied town ceremonially disfigured the bodies of captive Spaniards during one of the worst defeats in the Spanish Conquest of 1519-21, experts said Wednesday." Source: Archaeology News Network.

"The heads of the captive Spanish women were strung up on skull racks alongside those of men. An analysis of the bones revealed the women were pregnant, and in pre-Hispanic practice that may have qualified them as “warriors.” Another sacrificial offering included one woman’s body that was cut in half near the remains of a dsimembered child of 3 or 4."

Note: "The National Institute of Anthropology and History said the offerings were excavated at the Zultepec-Tecoaque site just east of Mexico City. Zultepec was an Aztec-allied town that in 1520 captured a convoy of about 15 male Spaniards, 50 women and 10 children, 45 foot soldiers who included Cubans of African and indigenous descent, and about 350 allies from indigenous groups in what is now Mexico. All were apparently sacrificed over the space of months."

Researchers Find Ancient Maya Farms In Mexican Wetlands

Video from 2018.

"Archaeologists with the University of Cincinnati used the latest technology to find evidence suggesting ancient Maya people grew surplus crops to support an active trade with neighbors up and down the Yucatan Peninsula." Source: Phys.org.

Excavations were carried out in the area of Laguna de Terminos, "the largest and one of biologically richest tidal lagoons located entirely on the Gulf Coast of Mexico, as measured by water volume." (Wikipedia)

According to Phys.org, "[s]atellite images revealed a patchwork quilt of blocks along drainage ditches that suggested they were built. Archaeologists also studied imagery NASA created of the region using a tool called Light Detection and Ranging, or LIDAR, that can depict the contours of the ground beneath the leafy canopy of trees and vegetation. Their review confirmed [that] the area was covered in ancient farm fields."

Hidden Maya Civilization Revealed Beneath Guatemala's Jungle Canopy (2018)

Video from Feb. 2018.

"More than 61,000 ancient Maya structures — from large pyramids to single houses — were lurking beneath the dense jungle canopy in Guatemala, revealing clues about the ancient culture's farming practices, infrastructure, politics and economy, a new aerial survey has revealed." Source: Live Science (2018)

"... The aerial lidar survey covered 12 separate areas in Petén, Guatemala, and included both rural and urban Maya settlements. After analyzing the images — which included isolated houses, large palaces, ceremonial centers and pyramids — the researchers determined that up to 11 million people lived in the Maya lowlands during the late Classic period, from A.D. 650 to 800."

Treasure Of Mayan Cave Paintings Discovered In Mexico (2018)

"Deep in the jungle, archaeologist Sergio Grosjean Abimerhi and his team discovered what could be the most important Mayan cave paintings on the Yucatan Peninsula." Source: Archaeology News Network.(2018)

"...'These are not the only cave paintings in the Yucatan, but they’re the most important because they have so many elements: birds, mammals, a cross, geometric figures, human forms including a warrior, as well as hands both negative and positive,' Grosjean, head of the Mexican Institute of Ecology, Science and Culture, told EFE [the Spanish international news agency]."

Note: The Ancient Architects channel describes these as "pre-Mayan" cave paintings while the Archaeology News Network calls them "Mayan." My guess is that they are a mixture of both.

The Petroglyphs Of Ometepe Island

This is one of the few videos I could find that shows some of the Ometepe petroglyphs and doesn't include a lot of standard tourist stuff, but the music is intolerable. Mute the audio.

"Ometepe is an island located on Lake Nicaragua in Nicaragua. The name of this island comes from the indigenous Nahuatl language. Ome means as ‘two’, whilst tepetl means ‘peaks / hills / mountains’. Hence, Ometepe may be translated as ‘the place of two hills’. The first Nahuatl-speaking inhabitants of Ometepe are said to have arrived on the island after following a prediction that instructed them to search out an ‘island paradise that consisted of two peaks’. Prior to their arrival, however, Ometepe had already been inhabited by a number of other tribes and cultures, as evidenced by the large quantity of petroglyphs scattered throughout the island. " Source: Ancient Origins.

Related: El Ceibo Museums - Ometepe Island

Oldest Known Human Burial In Lower Central America Discovered In Nicaragua

"The remains of a young woman were discovered by archaeologists in what is now the Nicaraguan village of Bleera Kaanu. Buried some 5,900 years ago, the unusually muscular woman young woman is the oldest known human buried in lower Central America to date, adding a significant chapter to the region’s archaeological record." Source: Archaeology News Network.