Expressions of Ballgame Ritual Participation at Matacanela in the Sierra de los Tuxtlas

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Los Rituales del Juego de Pelota en la Costa del Golfo / Ballgame Rituals in the Gulf Lowlands" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In this presentation, we consider the accumulated evidence for ballgame ritual participation throughout the Classic period center, Matacanela, located in the south-central Tuxtla Mountains. We also account for related symbols from settlements in the immediate outskirts and incorporate them into the view of the broader cultural landscape. During fieldwork conducted over the past decade, several ritual deposits were encountered during stratigraphic excavations that suggest that the occupants of the area participated in varying ways in the larger ballgame phenomenon—the manifestations of that ritual engagement were both monumental and modest in scale. Ball courts were constructed, sculpture was manufactured, and both were placed in arrangements that highlighted their changing importance during the site's growth, apogee, and decline. Moreover, portable symbols' personalized engagement in these collective rituals reveals ways that the ballgame and its participant observers linked the tradition to ebbing holds on authority during periods of cultural transformation.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Los Rituales del Juego de Pelota en la Costa del Golfo / Ballgame Rituals in the Gulf Lowlands   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37870.0