Mesoamerican Ballgame, Human Sacrifice, Ritual Decapitation, and Trophy Taking: Variations in Ways of Displaying

Summary

This is an abstract from the "New Perspectives on Ritual Violence and Related Human Body Treatments in Ancient Mesoamerica" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The purpose of this collaboration is to present the results of the analysis of a human skull located at the center of the ball court of Santa Rosa, Chiapas, and to review the implications it presents for the study of the Mesoamerican ball game and its relationship to human sacrifice. It is a unique case in which hard archaeological data directly associates a skull with the ball game. It will allow for the review of the widespread proposal linking the ball court with the *tzompantli. It will serve as a basis to present the many manners in which human body parts, primarily the head, were displayed and to explore how Mesoamerican peoples appropriated and adapted what were culture area–wide paradigms in thought and behavior.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• New Perspectives on Ritual Violence and Related Human Body Treatments in Ancient Mesoamerica

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 32789