Ballcourt at Chichen itza

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The Great Ballcourt of Chichén Itzá is 545 feet long and 225 feet wide overall. It has no vault, no discontinuity between the walls and is totally open to the sky.

Each end has a raised "temple" area. A whisper from end can be heard clearly at the other end 500 feet away and through the length and breath of the court. The sound waves are unaffected by wind direction or time of day/night. Archaeologists engaged in the reconstruction noted that the sound transmission became stronger and clearer as they proceeded.

Legends say that the the winning captain would present his head to the losing capitan, who then decapitates him. While this may seem a strange reward, the Mayans believed this to be the ultimate honor.The winning captian getting a direct ticket to heaven instead of going through the 13 steps that the Mayan's believed they had to go through in order to reach heaven.. ,br>
The sacred Ball Court was the site of a brutal Mayan sport. The field, approximately the size of a football field, is bordered by two imposing walls 26 feet tall. Seven combatants on each team tried to get a small rubber ball to go through a small stone hoop 23 feet above the ground supposedly without using their hands or feet to touch the ball. Virtually all descriptions of the native Mexican ballgames stress that hands were not allowed to touch the ball. Yet two 8th century Maya sculptures and several Peten Maya vases show players with their hands on the ball.It is believed that the losers of this game were often sacraficed to the Gods. These Mayan games predate the olympics by about 500 years!

The games played in the ballcourt were sometimes played to the death.

The Maya central city area was built for religous reasons. Almost every Mayan city had a ballcourt to play the ball game Pok-A-Tok. Pok-A-Tok games were often played as parts of religous ceremonies. Besides this large court, Chichen-Itza has 22 other courts, testimony to the importance of this (blood) sport.

Serious injury could be inflicted on a player with the hard ball which was mainly struckwith the elbows, knees or hips, but was not to be hit with the hands, feet or calves. Playerswere known to throw themselves on the ground to hit the ball properly. The full impact of the ball was in this case absorbed by the body. Participants wore equipment for protection, including chin pieces and half masks for cheeks, hard leather gloves, quilted cotton elbowpads, knee pads, belts or yokes made of leather or basketry for the waist a protruding palmate stone, and a leather apron.

The crucial thing when working with the Maya ballgame is to remember that the Maya played two main kinds of game: handball and "big ball". Their "big ball" game had two main variations, that played by dynastic rulers and that played by other members of the elite. Each variant could be played using either stone yugos low around their waist or wooden ball deflectors high on their chest. There seem to have been three classes of "goals".

At the on top of the slanted sides of the ball court are three parrot head markers - these markers were used as scoring devices for the game. The public watched the games from the stairs in front of Stela 2, which lead to the playing field, or the huge staircase that forms what looks like a wall.

This is just a sample, the rest :