Ball Court Of Chichen Itza

Mexico: Mayan ball court was celestial 'marker' — In this undated paradigm released past United mexican states'southward National Institute of Anthropology and History on Oct. 5, 2012, shows a section of a formalism ball court at the temples of Chichen Itza on the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico. Mexican archaeologists say they have adamant that the ancient Mayas built watchtower-style structures atop the ceremonial ball court to observe the equinoxes and solstices, and they said that the discovery adds to understanding of the many layers of ritual significance that the ball game had for the culture. (AP Photo/INAH)

Mexican archaeologists say they have determined that the ancient Mayas built watchtower-manner structures atop the ceremonial ball court at the temples of Chichen Itza to find the equinoxes and solstices, and they said Fri that the discovery adds to understanding of the many layers of ritual significance that the ball game had for the civilization.

The structures sit down atop the low walls of the court, where the Mayas played a game that consisted, equally far as experts can tell, of knocking a heavy, latex brawl with their elbows, knees or hips, through a stone ring set in the walls.

The bases of the structures—substantially, await-out boxes set atop the walls, each one with a minor slit running through it —had been detected before, but archaeologist hadn't been sure what they were used for. Since the brawl court was built around 864 A.D., the boxes and the stairs leading to them had crumbled.

The government's National Found of Anthropology and History announced Thursday that the boxes had been 90-percent reconstructed, based on the stone footings that remained. Late concluding twelvemonth and early this year, a squad led by archaeologist Jose Huchim confirmed that the sun shone through the slit-like openings when the setting sun touches the horizon at the winter solstice.

The sunday's rays also formed a diagonal blueprint at the equinox in the slit-like openings, which are about tall enough to stand up up in.

Huchim said he knew of no similar structures at other Mayan ball courts. "This is the identify where we're finding this type of pasaje (construction)," Huchim said. He said a stone structure atop a ball court at the nearby ruin site of Uxmal appeared to have been used as a sort of spectators' stand up for elite audiences.

Huchim said the slits may have been used to determine when ball matches were played, given that the ball itself, as it was knocked through the air by the players, may have been seen as imitating the sun's arc as information technology passed through the sky.

It may have also been used "like a calendar, to marker important periods for agriculture," like planting the core ingather of corn.

Finally, Huchim noted that old descriptions of the ball courts sometimes depicted people atop the walls, and that they may have been interim equally umpires in the game.

Huchim said Thursday that stairways to the structures are being restored so visitors can observe the phenomenon.

Boston University archaeologist Francisco Estrada-Belli, who was not involved in the project, said the solar sighting lines were office of "part of Maya architecture and cosmology."

"The fact that the sun ascension tin can be observed backside a structure should exist understood in that sense, equally reverence to the sun or other star, non necessarily as an observatory in the technical sense," Estrada-Belli said. The orientation of the structures "emphasized the sacrality of the ritual space."

Citation: Mexico: Mayan ball court was celestial 'mark' (Update) (2012, Oct v) retrieved 25 Oct 2022 from https://phys.org/news/2012-10-mexico-mayan-ball-court-celestial.html

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