Archaeologists uncover a Mayan sport marker courting again 1,000 years
(CNN) – A stone pill utilized in a football-like sport of soccer has been found on the well-known Mayan archaeological website of Chichen Itza on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, archaeologists reported this week.
It’s a round piece, with a diameter of simply over 32 centimeters and a weight of 40 kilograms. The hieroglyphs seem on the stone round two gamers standing subsequent to a ball, in accordance with an announcement from Mexico’s Nationwide Institute of Anthropology and Historical past (INAH).
“At this Mayan website it’s uncommon to seek out hieroglyphs, not to mention a whole script,” mentioned Francisco Perez, one of many archaeologists coordinating investigations of the Chichanchobe advanced, often known as Casa Colorada.
The stone, which is believed to be a Mayan sport scoreboard, has been dated to between 800 and 900 AD.
Journalists take images and movies of the Mayan signal. Photograph: Lorenzo Hernandez / Reuters
The ball sport was a conventional apply of the peoples of Mesoamerica and is believed to have a ritual background.
The INAH researchers at the moment are getting ready to take high-resolution pictures of the textual content and pictures to review them intimately. Additionally, they put together it for preservation.
The Chichén Itzá advanced is without doubt one of the foremost archaeological facilities of the Maya civilization on the Yucatan Peninsula. It has additionally been declared a World Heritage Website by UNESCO.
Based on official knowledge, about 2 million folks go to the positioning yearly.
