Mesoamerican Ballcourt Beneath Mexico City

Ballcourts are recognized by scholars as a defining trait of Mesoamerican sites, and such structures have been uncovered in the archaeological record of nearly every geographic and cultural area of ancient Mexico. One notable example in central Mexico was discovered beneath the streets of modern day Mexico City—a remnant of the Templo Mayor complex of the former Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan. Employing the data gathered through archaeological endeavors, historical records, and modern ethnographic research, archaeologists and anthropologists continue to build upon current understandings and interpretations of this ceremony’s place in ancient Mesoamerica.

Long before the first excavations took place, scholars could have guessed that the remnants of a ballcourt remained below central Mexico’s ancient urban center. Aztec scholars are fortunate because the body of evidence for their studies is not limited to physical remain - archaeological findings are complemented by modern ethnographic data and the accounts of Spanish missionaries and conquistadores from the time of the conquest. One such chronicler was the Franciscan Fray Bernardino de Sahagún – his work General History of the Things of New Spain depicts numerous ceremonial structures within the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, including two ballcourts. It has been asserted that the Teotlachco court Sahagún describes in his writing is the same playing field uncovered centuries later in the archaeological undertakings behind the city’s Metropolitan Cathedral. Sahagún’s work provides invaluable (though arguably biased) insight into the ritual and sacrificial ceremonies that took place at this site such as the calendrical timing of the events and the gods to whom the activities were dedicated that would otherwise be missing from the archaeological record.

The first archaeological evidence to support the existence of a ballcourt beneath Mexico City was uncovered behind the Metropolitan Cathedral in 1900 by Leopoldo Batres. He and his workers unearthed six stone spheres, two of them painted red and blue, likely symbolizing the rubber balls used in the game. Work at the same location in 1967 produced two stone ballcourt models and two stone balls, this time painted white and black. However, it was not until the establishment of the Urban Archaeological Program in 1991 that the architectural features of the ballcourt itself came to light. The playing field is estimated to have been approximately fifty meters in length, features a talus running east-west with red, black, and white sculpted skulls, and shows evidence of several phases of construction. Beneath the floors of the east and west end zones were discovered two stone boxes. Both held offerings including a flint knife, a small rubber ball, and carved shell pendants; cottonseed remains and greenstone beads were also recovered among the finds. A number of additional offerings were uncovered dating to various phases of construction containing artifacts such as pottery fragments, human skull remains, flint knives, snail shells, beads, miniature drums, and whistles with bird-head finials.

The combination of these finding with anthropological knowledge gained through ethnohistoric documents has allowed scholars to discuss the symbolism of the offerings and the larger cosmological significance of the game. The mother-of-pearl hand pendants may have served as tiny representations of the gear seen worn by players depicted in sites such as El Tajin and Dainzu, and the stone spheres seem to represent the balls used in play. The musical instruments invoke notions of the overlapping gods of music and the ballgame, and the knives, bone pendants, and skeletal remains serve as chilling reminders of the prominent role of human sacrifice in the rituals surrounding the contest. Some have suggested that the black and white balls discovered beneath the court represent night and day—the constant struggle between these dichotomous forces is a pervasive theme in the Aztec world view and is represented in the battle between the opposing deities Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl. Many parallel the movement of the rubber ball to the movement of the celestial bodies, and this metaphor is openly expressed by players of the modern Michoacan ballgame. The connections between varied ancient cultural regions across Mesoamerica are seen in the fact that the game is a prominent aspect of the Maya creation myth from the Popul Vuh, in which the Hero Twins play the game against the lords of the Underworld. In ancient Mesoamerica the ballgame served to reaffirm cosmological ideologies and validate the necessity of practices such as warfare and sacrifice.

Today a large part of the great ballcourt of Tenochtitlan still lies beneath Mexico’s Metropolitan Cathedral. Unable to understand the human sacrifice involved in the worship of Aztec gods and eager to convert the indigenous population to Christianity, the Spanish quickly razed much of the capital’s ceremonial plaza to build the church and surrounding buildings which exist in the city today. While it is unknown if the conquistadores fully appreciated the cosmological significance of the Mesoamerican ballgame, they nonetheless understood its power to cement the ideologies and lifestyles they wished to transform. The rituals that took place within the space of the ballcourt were not secular public spectacles or sporting events—they were ideologically charged performances that reminded the Aztecs of the relationships and shared struggles between man and the gods.