The Maya Made Game Balls By Mixing Rubber With Ashes From Their Cremated Rules
The Maya crafted rubber balls for their ballgames in a highly unusual way: by mixing rubber with ash from their cremated rulers.
In 2020, researchers found what they believed to be evidence of this practice while conducting excavations in the Maya city of Toniná, located in southern Mexico.
The ballgame’s rules and name may have changed over time, but the basic premise of the game consisted of two teams and a rubber ball on a capital I-shaped course.
For thousands of years, the game was popular across the Americas. Several ball courts have been discovered in ancient Maya cities.
A team of researchers led by Juan Yadeun Angulo, an archaeologist at Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History, stumbled upon a 1,300-year-old crypt in Toniná under a pyramid called the Temple of the Sun.
The crypt contained the remains of around 400 vessels that held organic materials like ash, charcoal, and natural rubber.
After analyzing the vessels and the site, the team concluded that the ash was the cremated remains of Maya rulers. The other materials in the jars were necessary ingredients for the process of making stronger and bouncier rubber. The ashes helped add an extra layer of durability and toughness.
The researchers also examined the carvings on sculptures in an ancient ball court near the pyramid. The sculptures depict a ruler named Wak Chan Káhk.
According to Maya hieroglyphics, he died on September 1, A.D. 775. In addition, a woman named Lady Káwiil Kaan, someone with a high social status, died in A.D. 722. It is believed that these two individuals were cremated, and their remains were used to produce rubber balls.
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A text called “Popol Vuh” tells the Maya creation story, which states that the underworld had a ball court where the game was played with the heads of humans or gods.
Angulo noted that there were sculptures depicting captives inside rubber balls thrown around by a wealthy-looking man located in the nearby site of Yaxchilán. He claimed they served as additional evidence of the Maya using human remains to make rubber balls.
Some scholars were skeptical about the idea that the ashes of rulers were used. The practice itself is consistent with the rituals and activities of the Maya that have been documented. They utilized human remains for a number of purposes.
However, it was more likely that the remains of war captives were incorporated into rubber balls rather than those of rulers.
“Glancing through the information I found, there is no actual evidence presented that rubber balls were crafted to include the cremated remains of Maya rulers,” said Susan Gillespie, an anthropology professor at the University of Florida.
Overall, experts are in agreement that more research is needed to confirm the findings.
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