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Mesoamerican ballcourt

"Ballcourt" redirects here. For courts on which other ball games are played, see Court (disambiguation) § Architecture.
Ceramic sculpture from a Western Mexican tomb showing players engaged in the Mesoamerican ballgame

A Mesoamerican ballcourt (Nahuatl languages: tlachtli) is a large masonry structure of a type used in Mesoamerica for more than 2,700 years to play the Mesoamerican ballgame, particularly the hip-ball version of the ballgame.[1] More than 1,300 ballcourts have been identified, 60% in the last 20 years alone.[when?][2] Although there is a tremendous variation in size, in general all ballcourts are the same shape: a long narrow alley flanked by two walls with horizontal, vertical, and sloping faces. Although the alleys in early ballcourts were open-ended, later ballcourts had enclosed end-zones, giving the structure an -shape when viewed from above.

Ballcourts were also used for functions other than, or in addition to, ballgames. Ceramics from western Mexico show ballcourts being used for other sporting endeavours, including what appears to be a wrestling match.[3] It is also known from archaeological excavations that ballcourts were the sites of sumptuous feasts, although whether these were conducted in the context of the ballgame or as another event entirely is not as yet known.[4] The siting of the most prominent ballcourts within the sacred precincts of cities and towns, as well as the votive deposits found buried there, demonstrates that the ballcourts were places of spectacle and ritual.

  1. ^ Cohodas states that the masonry courts were used "exclusively" for the hip-ball game.
  2. ^ Taladoire, p. 98. Note that there are slightly over 200 ballcourts also identified in the American Southwest which are not included in this total, since these are outside Mesoamerica and there is significant discussion whether these areas were used for ballplaying or not.
  3. ^ Day, p. 69.
  4. ^ Zender, p. 10, who cites John Gerard Fox (1996) "Playing with Power" in Current Anthropology.