The "ballgame", as it is simply known to researchers, was thought to be a violent sport, and some scholars even believe losing players were sacrificed at the end of the game

A creepy Mayan ballgame that turned dead people into the insides of rubber balls has fascinated researchers.

"The ballgame", as scholars call it, is thought to be one of the most important religious and cultural aspects of Mayan society, which began shortly after the start of the last millennium around 250 AD.

Although the rules of the game aren't known, scholars know that the game was played by two opposing teams on court shaped like the letter 'I', with a rubber ball, and is thought to have been a violent game, the Daily Beast reports.

Players would wear protective gear to prevent injury, especially as the game was played between stone walls, and some have even theorised the losers of the game were sacrificed at the end - although most researchers don't believe this was an integral, or even common, part of the game.

It's likely, instead, that the people who died during the game were captives, or killed incidentally as the violent ballgame was played

Plenty of courts have been discovered in ancient Mayan cities, and the game was played from modern-day Arizona and New Mexico to as far south as Colombia, uniting huge parts of Central and South America.

But a creepy discovery has led scholars to believe that "the ballgame" was far eerier than first thought.

In 2020 a team, led by archaeologist Juan Yadeun Angulo of Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History, discovered crypt dating back more than 1000 years beneath a Pyramid in Toniná in Chiapas, Mexico - one of many pyramids likely from the sixth or seventh overlooking a central plaza, where two ball courts were located.

Inside the crypt, the archaeologists discovered a maze of stairways and small chambers.

The team found about 400 vessels there that had once contained materials such as charcoal, ash, plant roots and natural rubber.

Angulo and his companions noticed that the materials that were kept there were similar to those needed for the vulcanisation - or hardening - of rubber, and they hypothesised that the ashes were the remains of cremated rulers.

Angulo believes the ancient rulers were turned to ash and used as an ingredient in the balls, and that this "transformation of the body" allowed rulers to be immortalised in ball form.

In the neighbouring site of Yaxchilán archaeologists discovered artwork carved onto sculptures there showing players throwing balls containing human captives, fuelling the theory that the balls contain human remains.

Some scholars disagree with Angulo's theory, saying more research is needed to connect the balls used in the game with the ancient rulers' ashes.

Source: https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/weird-news/inside-creepy-ancient-mayan-sport-27795753

LoL reminds me of the movie "apocalypto"

Maguire oooooo, thank GOD you are safe.

Right from antiquity, mankind has yielded for some entertainment. It’s no surprise that in late 19th century after the abolition of slave trade football was discovered and first played in Britain and now a global sports…

Before football and some modern day sports, there have been archaic and weird form of sports engaged by people as a form of entertainment. Most of these weird entertainment practices can be found on the scrolls of Ancient Rome.

history still have so many creepy untold tales waiting to get discovered

Youngwiz71:
LoL reminds me of the movie "apocalypto"

Apocalypto are the Mayans; a tribe currently found in the North America country of Mexico

YinkaOlusesi16:
Maguire oooooo, thank GOD you are safe.

dis comrade sha. reduce d volume abeg

E don tey wey end time practices don dey, e just loud these days

What da...

This people ehn!!!
Them no dey let the dead rest

Lol

Hmmmmm

Okay

meaning wawulence didn't start today

Noted.

Just the fact that as a child, I watched the discovery of Egyptian mummies on video recording and today, I am shown pictures is staggering. To know that James Cameron has video recording of the Mariana Trench and all these discoveries that happen in distances that a child can easily walk, have no video recording is mind-boggling.

How can I believe these pictures that I myself can create on a computer? Where is the place that it has not become a tourist attraction. From the Dinosaurs footprints to this. Tell us the location, we can go and verify these 133 million years footprints.

The reverse storyline of the African ghost that goes to a foreign land to father children is what we are seeing. Africans can neither tell you the place where the ghost who fathered the ghost babies was born nor the family that it happened to. It is all about "one man", and "one place".

Wonders

C

Ok