9/17/2023 0 Comments Sport head soccer champions league“We now know that’s absolute hooey, and so is the notion that any victorious player would be sacrificed.” In Maya mythology, the loser of the ball game is decapitated, and today’s scholars widely accept that losers, not winners, got the chop. “They couldn’t believe that the Maya committed human sacrifice,” she said. They go on to become the sun and the moon.ĭespite evidence that the losers sometimes got the literal axe, says Miller, some 20th-century archaeologists refused to believe that anyone except the winners were killed. Sacrifice and sport are closely related in a Maya creation myth, too: It shows a pair of ball-playing twins defeating the lords of the underworld on the court. The specifics are unclear, but some courts are decorated with panels depicting the gory sacrifice of losing players. In Maya and Veracruz cultures, the stakes were even higher: The losers of some ritual games were sacrificed. Aztec kings reportedly played it as a substitute for war, gaining ruling rights or diffusing diplomatic dramas with a game of ball. Though it was played as an everyday pickup sport, much like soccer or basketball, this ball game also held a sacred place in religion and warfare for Mesoamerican cultures. Learn about the Maya's influence in mathematics, how their cosmic calendars advised agricultural matters, and how the legacy of this ancient civilization endures through Maya people today. With their impressive city structures and advanced astronomical understanding, the Maya civilization once dominated Mesoamerica. If a player managed to get it into a high ring on the opposing team’s side, it was an automatic win-and a major honor for the winner. They tried to hit the back wall of their opponents’ courts with just one bounce, often sustaining life-threatening injuries when they were hit with the hard, heavy ball. Other evidence of game play ranges from ceramic vessels to more than 1,300 large stone courts that can be found across the region.Īztec players bounced the ball back and forth between teams using only their hips and buttocks (feet or hands were off limits). Many of these games were played with 16-pound rubber balls, which still exist in the archaeological record. ( Who were the Maya? Decoding the ancient civilization's secrets.) So did its rules, which included moves such as keeping the ball in play by bumping it with body parts or using racquets or bats. Its name varied- ullamaliztli in Aztec, pok-ta-pok or pitz in Maya. It’s unclear exactly where the game was invented, but it was popular across Mesoamerican cultures like the Teotihuacanos, Aztecs, and Maya beginning about 3,000 years ago. In Mesoamerica, the vast historical region spanning from Mexico to Costa Rica, civilizations flourished well before Columbus “discovered” them, and many of these people played a sport that involved a heavy ball made from a substance derived from tree resin. “The idea of the team sport was invented in Mesoamerica,” says Mary Miller, a professor of the history of art at Yale University who has studied extensive evidence of the sport. ( See vintage pictures of soccer players around the world.) But the predecessor of most modern ball games can be found in the Americas. The Chinese were the first to get their kicks by kicking balls into nets for sport in the third century B.C., and the game known globally as football was formalized in England in the 19th century. Here’s what you need to know about soccer’s ancient origins and why it’s the world’s favorite sport today. Soccer is by far the world’s most popular sport, and for good reason-beloved by at least 265 million people worldwide, it’s easy to play in a random yard or field and instantly relate to the players racing across stadiums around the world.īut if you’re looking for the earliest ancestor of all that running, kicking, and cooperating, be ready to turn back your watch, spin your globe-and make sure not to literally lose your head. With the stunning news that soccer legend Lionel Messi is joining Major League Soccer's Inter Miami team, it got us thinking: Who invented this sport?
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