Mexican Archaeologists Say Tonina Ballgame Court may Be the One Described in Popol Vuh

The recent finding of 2 sculptures with the shape of a serpent’s head that 1,500 years ago were part of the Ballgame at the Maya city of Tonina, Chiapas today, were found by archaeologists of the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH). This discovery allows the consolidation of the hypotheses of how this ritual place looked like in the Prehispanic age; due to its architectural position it is the one that resembles more the one described in Popol Vuh, the sacred book of the Mayas.

Four other similar scultures have appeared in different moments since 1992, all of them in Palacio del Inframundo (Underworld Palace), at the Acropolis of Tonina. Both monuments, manufactured with limestone and 80 centimeters long, present a Teotihuacan style.

After pointing out that the study of this ballgame court goes back three decades, the archaeologist from the Chiapas INAH Center detailed that since 1992, fragments of figures of reptile heads were found, buried at the Palacio del Inframundo. At present, four of them have been completed, but inscriptions at the site refer to six.

http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=43326&int_modo=1