Page 29 - Mexico Diving From the Caribbean to Pacific Isles

oba has at least two ball courts, one team willingly and proudly go to live with trum in the Yucatán peninsula and began
their gods? You will hear different stories eroding the dominance of Coba. After 1000
C of which has been partially excavated on this one. It’s also possible that traditions AD, Coba lost much of its political weight
changed during the thousands of years the among city states, although it maintained
only recently. The ball game played an Mayan civilization was around. some symbolic and religious importance.
important role in Mayan society and most This allowed it to maintain or recover some
cities had a ball court, which is basically C oba must have maintained close status, which is evidenced by the new
a corridor of two stoned walls. The game contacts with the large city states of buildings dating to the time 1200-1500
was played between two teams, using only Guatemala and the south of Campeche like AD, now built in the typical Eastern coastal
their hips and elbows to get a rubber ball Tikal or Calakmul. It is quite noteworthy style. . However, power centers and trading
through a hoop. At some sites, like Coba, that Coba shows traces of Teotihuacan ar- routes had moved to the coast, forcing
the sides of the ball court are slanted, chitecture, like a platform in the Paintings cities like Coba into a secondary status, al-
which makes it possible to get close to the group that was explored in 1999, which though somewhat more successful than its
hoop. Inscriptions and other pieces of art would attest to the existence of contacts more ephemeral enemy Chichén Itzá. Coba
show that human sacrifice was a part of with the central Mexican cultures and its was abandoned at the time the Spanish
the game. There are different theories as powerful city. After 600 AD, the emergence conquered the peninsula around 1550.
to who actually got sacrificed - the captain of Chichén Itzá altered the political spec-
or the whole team? Did the losers have
to pay with their lives or did the winning