Chichen Itza is also known for its great Ball Court, which is recorded to be the largest in Mesoamerica, by a large margin. The playfield is about 443 feet by 213 feet, there are two 26 feet high parallel walls, one on either side of the court, and it has no vaulting, as it is an open sky court. Each wall has scoring rings in the shape of a coiling serpent, and placed at incredible heights; players had to strike a rubber ball through these rings (much like basketball, but sideways). The rubber ball consisted of a 12 pound rubber ball made from natural rubber extracted from the Hevea Tree (in fact the use of rubber to manufacture objects was first done here, in Mesoamerica). The rules of the sport were that they could only use their elbows, wrist, and hips to hit the ball, and for this reasons they carried very heavy padding covering, it was a very challenging game indeed; it would be like having to handle a bowling ball with only your elbows, wrist, ouch! Nonetheless apparently these games lasted for hours. Pretty cool, huh? Cool, but only up until the point where the captain of one of the teams (or maybe the whole team) would be sacrificed. It’s still unknown whether it was the winning team or the losing team which was sacrificed to the gods, and it is also not entirely known whether this only occurred during special occasions or during all the tournaments, or when rival cities were playing (you know.. like ‘classics’). Some evidence point to the theory that they competed to be sacrificed to the gods, this being because they considered it to be a real honor to die like this. Along the walls of this place are many depictions of the players, the game, and even the sacrifices, which no longer posses their original vibrant colors, but are still recognizable. On the inside base of the walls are slanted benches, and on its stone panels there are teams of ball players sculpted into it. If you look closely at one of the panels, there is a player that had been decapitated, and from his wound he is emitting seven blood streams, of which six become serpents, and the middle center one, becomes a twirling plant.
At each end of the Ball Park there are two temples, the Northern Temple and the Southern Temple, the Northern Temple is popularly called the Temple of the Bearded Man, because of the carvings on the inner wall of a center figure that appears to be a man with a bearded face. This may be another reference to Kukulcan, whom legend has it, was bearded, unlike the Mesoamericans, who could hardly grow facial hair. The Southern Temple is largely destroyed, but much bigger, but if one is the Temple of Kukulcan, then my guess would be that this other opposite much bigger temple might be a temple to Kukulcan’s enemy, the dark lord of the night and mischief, known as Tezcatlipoca. Here in the Ball Court, they are symbolically, facing each other. Something very interesting to note and experience, are the acoustics of the Ball Park when one is very close to this temples. A whisper from one of these ends can be heard clearly at the other end 500 feet away, and the sound appears to be unaffected by day or night or the direction of the wind. Initially the archeologist involved in the reconstruction of the park attributed the acoustics to the accidental state of the ruins. To their surprise, however, the acoustics only improved as the Ball Court was being completed. In 1931, the American conductor, Leopold Stokowski, spent 4 days at the site trying to understand the science behind the acoustics, and subsequently apply them to an open air concert theater he was working on; but he could not understand how it worked. And today, scientists from around the world continue to be bedazzled by this incredible work of acoustics engineering. It is surmised, that the acoustics was built into the Ball Court, to allow the guests in both temples to communicate directly with each other, at more than 500 feet of distance. This is an interesting technological feat, considering that the Mayas never surpassed the technology of the Stone Age and never invented the wheel.
For these reasons, and more, you definitively should not miss out on this one. It’s a personal favorite. Please make sure to let Patawalk.com know of your experiences in the Mayan Ball Park – we will be happy to let our travel community know if there is anything new to try out.
