by Christine Chen
Fall 2017 Intern
In my recently found passion for
pre-Colombian cultures, I went to visit Chichén Itzá, a world famous site of
Mayan ruins in Yucatán, Mexico. The site hosts one of the largest surviving stone
courts where the Maya once competed in a ball game sport called Pok-A-Tok,
derived from the Yucatec Mayan word pokolpok.
The court
at Chichén Itzá measures 551 feet long and 230 feet wide—about twice
the size of an American football field— with surrounding walls that are 26 feet
high. Teams of two to three players competed by using their padded elbows, arms,
knees, thighs and shoulders—but no hands—to bounce a solid rubber ball through
an inverted stone hoop in the center of the wall. The ball, ranging from the
size of a softball to a soccer ball, could weigh up to 20 pounds.
Can you imagine how challenging it
must have been to throw a 20-pound rubber ball through a 20-foot-high hoop
without using your hands? According to my guide in Chichén Itzá, the feat
proved so difficult that modern men were unable to replicate the game in the
stone court!
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