The Mesoamerican Ballgame was central to the culture of pre-Columbian Central America, with Mayan kings using
ah pitzlaw (he the ballplayer) as one of their royal titles. It is played with a rubber ball, which sometimes had human skulls for cores. The object of the game was to get the ball through a vertical hoop. Called many names throughout history, pitz, ulama and juego de pelota, this game has been played for 3000 years. Though usually a form of recreation, sometimes it would be played for ritual purposes, with the players of the losing side being sacrificed.
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posted by Kattullus
on Jul 19, 2007 -
21 comments
Mexican Day of the Dead, only with a twist: in Pomuch, in the Mayan area in Southeastern Mexico, Mayans celebrate their dead by digging out their remains, and cleaning them. Photos
here. The regular Day of the Dead of the dead festivities have been discussed previously on MetaFilter
here,
here, and
here. For those of you who may want to practice,
this is a story
en español. The link to the pictures might be NSFW.
posted by micayetoca
on Nov 2, 2006 -
21 comments
Mystery of 'chirping' pyramid decoded: "A theory that the ancient Mayans built their pyramids to act as giant resonators to produce strange and evocative echoes has been supported by a team of Belgian scientists." Others are not so sure... Coincidence, or engineering? Did the designers of
El Castillo pyramid cannily build in a sound effect that mimics the warble of the sacred quetzal bird? Listen for yourself, with the
.wav file (first set is the real bird, the second is the pyramid) featured in
this Acoustical Society of America page. I prefer to think it's deliberate; after all, it's possible that early man was experimenting with cave acoustics to to create
sound-enhanced rock art (there are sound samples for this included
here - unfortunately a Geocities site). Also of interest, the BBC programme "
Acoustic Shadows"
(requires RealPlayer - *heavy sigh*).
posted by taz
on Feb 8, 2005 -
24 comments
