Ritual and Divination in Ancient Maya Dice Games

Summary

In this presentation I examine the dice games played by the ancient Maya and investigate the interpretation proposed by several Mayanists that these games were used primarily for divinatory purposes. I examine the archaeological contexts of these ‘patolli’ boards and review the substantial body of ethno-historical and ethnographic material from broader Mesoamerican contexts in order to scrutinize the interpretation that these games served as divinatory devices and to offer other interpretations and possibilities. This body of evidence is then compared with both ethno-historic and ethnographic accounts of Maya shamanistic divination in order to further query the claim that these dice games were used in divinatory rituals in the ancient Maya world

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Games People Play: Prehistoric Games of Indigenous North Americans

Keywords

Spatial Coverage