La Jornada: They invite you to discover the ancient history of the ball game in Tenochtitlan

A journey through the ancient history of the ball game in Mesoamerica, and especially the ritual structure of the Mexica teotlachco, can be taken through the more than 100 pieces – many of these exhibited for the first time and coming from various offerings – in the exhibition The ball game in Tenochtitlanwhich opens today in the lobby of the Templo Mayor Museum and includes models, photographs, graphics and a projection.

Raúl Barrera Rodríguez, director of the Urban Archeology Program (PAU) and curator along with Lorena Vázquez Vallín and Eduardo Matos Moctezuma, said that the exhibition arose “after the excavations on the Guatemala 16 property, where in 2010 the back part of the Temple of Ehécatl was found and in 2014 we found the external part of the ball court, which allowed us to widely understand the architectural features of the so-called teotlachco.”

With museography by Bianca Moreno, “pieces will be exhibited that were found during the excavations of Leopoldo Batres, at the beginning of the 20th century, who found some offerings, including five sphere-shaped sculptures that represent rubber balls, in addition to other pre-Hispanic objects recovered during the construction of Metro line 2, in the archaeological rescue coordinated by Jordi Gussinyer, as well as from the research and exploration of the PAU in the back of the Metropolitan Cathedral,” added Barrera Rodríguez.

Vázquez Vallín commented that the temporary exhibition will be open until the end of September. “The idea is to offer a general overview of the Mesoamerican ball game, a tradition that was not born with the Mexica, but comes from a long time ago. This practice explains where it appears, as well as its uses and meanings; then we direct the visitor to the ball game in the sacred precinct of Tenochtitlan, the game of the gods, the so-called teotlachco. We also show the offerings that have been known around this building, because although it was a recreational activity and had a sense of entertainment, “It was first born with a deep religious sense through various ceremonies.”

The curator added: “we present a hypothetical reconstruction of the Mexica teotlachco, based on both archeology and historical sources, which gives an account of what the ball game was like, in addition to a stele of a player from Tula and some rubber balls from El Manatí. The symbolism of these spheres and their material is also explained, as well as the conservation methods.”

Another moment of the tour, added Vázquez Vallín, is to describe “what happened to the ball game upon the arrival of the Spanish and how this activity was transformed, which until now continues to be played with some variants.”

Barrera Rodríguez highlighted: “the five sculptures with ball representations found by Batres at the beginning of the 20th century will be shown for the first time, as well as objects from the offering discovered by Gussinyer in the late 1960s, of which two miniature representations of ball games in green stone stand out.”

Lorena Vázquez explained that of the emblematic pieces associated with the teotlachco, “an offering found in 2014 by the PAU that consists of 32 sets of cervical vertebrae – necks and fragments of skulls – deposited by the Mexica, will be exhibited, which has a very deep meaning related to the practice of human sacrifice, which is linked to the renewal of life cycles and ties in with the meaning that the ball game had.”

The pieces in the exhibition come from the PAU’s work around the sacred precinct of the Templo Mayor, as well as from the National Museum of Anthropology, the Regional Museum of Nayarit, the Guillermo Spratling Museum of Taxco, and the Museum of Teotihuacan Culture.

In parallel to the exhibition, in the same venue a series of conferences are offered on Saturdays until August 29, in which several specialists will participate, as well as an exhibition of the ulama, with UNAM players, on August 15 and the publication of a catalog of the exhibition.