How/where specifically did they find it in such a high-traffic tourist destination? What does it say?
Mayan ball game scoreboard thought to be over 1k years old found in Mexico
51–60 of 63 posts
Re: Mayan ball game scoreboard thought to be over 1k years old found in Mexico
#52We just returned from Cancun, where we toured the ruins of Tulum. The maya apparently had folded books, which out of thousands only 3 remain. To see them, you have to travel to Madrid, Paris or Dresden. Apparently the rest were burned by Spanish when they arrived in late 1580. Somehow I was overwhelmed with a huge sense of loss when I heard this. Knowledge from around 3000 bc to 1580 or so just burned.
> We found a large number of books in these characters and, as they contained nothing in which were not to be seen as superstition and lies of the devil, we burned them all, which they (the Maya) regretted to an amazing degree, and which caused them much affliction.
Re: Mayan ball game scoreboard thought to be over 1k years old found in Mexico
#53I really wish ancient sports would make a comeback. I would give an arm and leg to spectate at an ancient sports demo event. Sort of Renaissance fair meets Olympics vibe.
This specific type of ball game is widely known and advertised in Mexico, to the point that the following type of events is organised: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKvQjgC9sIY But as said in another comment, it's just an interpretation, it's really hard to tell if it's anything like the original intent of the sport/ritual. --- Here's an optimistic video about a different modern approach to what is known of the gam…
And in a thousand years historians will look back at baseball, a well-known sports game with ritual overtones. The team known roughly as 'the bloody foot-mittens' is known to have been cursed by the gods for over half a century.
Re: Mayan ball game scoreboard thought to be over 1k years old found in Mexico
#54We just returned from Cancun, where we toured the ruins of Tulum. The maya apparently had folded books, which out of thousands only 3 remain. To see them, you have to travel to Madrid, Paris or Dresden. Apparently the rest were burned by Spanish when they arrived in late 1580. Somehow I was overwhelmed with a huge sense of loss when I heard this. Knowledge from around 3000 bc to 1580 or so just burned.
Same with the Aztecs of Tenochtitlan, who kept meticulous bureaucratic records. We know quite a bit about them thanks to the friars who got to see a lot of the records while Cortes' expedition were guests (/captors) of Montezuma. They all burned during the final battle for Tenochtitlan.
Re: Mayan ball game scoreboard thought to be over 1k years old found in Mexico
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
OP said "morning coffee ritual", not the coffee maker. Put yourself in the seat of someone coming to look at your house 1,000+ years after you died. Most things are gone but some things are intact. Our history and language was either wiped out or indiscernible. What would they find? Well, in my house, here's a few things: - they'd find that the softwood in my kitchen is much more worn than the rest of my house. We ei…
If the person discovering these things is a real scientist, he will say he doesn't know what it was for. If he is not, he will say it was for ritual purposes and that the stupid 21st century people believed a spirit lived inside the machine.
> believed a spirit lived inside
Your own definition of "ritual".
I think that socratic contempt for religion used to be an absolute fringe. Only recently we can distinguish betwen scientific and unscientific. For eons, people, educated people, could only distinguish between traditional and weird.
That was their "knowledge" and they used what they had, because one needs to navigate their life somehow.
Re: Mayan ball game scoreboard thought to be over 1k years old found in Mexico
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
OP said "morning coffee ritual", not the coffee maker. Put yourself in the seat of someone coming to look at your house 1,000+ years after you died. Most things are gone but some things are intact. Our history and language was either wiped out or indiscernible. What would they find? Well, in my house, here's a few things: - they'd find that the softwood in my kitchen is much more worn than the rest of my house. We ei…
If the person discovering these things is a real scientist, he will say he doesn't know what it was for. If he is not, he will say it was for ritual purposes and that the stupid 21st century people believed a spirit lived inside the machine.
The word "ritual" doesn't strictly have to do with religion or mysticism. Stand ups, retrospectives, and release ceremonies are also called rituals.
Re: Mayan ball game scoreboard thought to be over 1k years old found in Mexico
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you could make a very, very compelling case that the process of making coffee is, for many people (especially those really into it), an important ritual which has a lot of significance beyond the specific output. Look at the discourse around the James Hoffman AeroPress saga and tell me that shit isn't insanely ritualized. Nothing religious or spiritual (usually), but you get a lot of time/structure/cycle/morn…
By your reasoning, would it be possible for a person to make herself a cup of coffee and drink it without you considering it to be ritually?
Yeah - there are a lot of tasks that we frequently do that don't have this kind of associated trappings (on a cultural level): opening a car door handle, tying shoes, etc.
Making coffee is much more susceptible to this kind of ritualmaking because of the implicit repetition, sequence and waiting qualities of the process. That said, there are people who engage with the process without any ritual - the patient in the dentist's waiting room who pops in a K-cup, the McDonalds worker who fills the McCafe order off a ticket, the spouse who runs out of tea and puts on a cup of their partner's coffee.
Re: Mayan ball game scoreboard thought to be over 1k years old found in Mexico
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the person discovering these things is a real scientist, he will say he doesn't know what it was for. If he is not, he will say it was for ritual purposes and that the stupid 21st century people believed a spirit lived inside the machine.
> believed a spirit lived inside Your own definition of "ritual". I think that socratic contempt for religion used to be an absolute fringe. Only recently we can distinguish betwen scientific and unscientific. For eons, people, educated people, could only distinguish between traditional and weird. That was their "knowledge" and they used what they had, because one needs to navigate their life somehow.
You're expressing a kind of modern arrogance regarding past people that has no evidence. What makes you think that you know what and how ancient people thought? Maybe ancient people where much smarter and rational than the people of today? Considering they didn't eat toxins or spend hours each day being brain washed by a screen...
Re: Mayan ball game scoreboard thought to be over 1k years old found in Mexico
#59Anybody in the Southwest of the U.S. may be interested to know that the northernmost known ballcourt for this game is at the Wupatki National Monument in Arizona, an absolutely incredible and very under visited location.
Re: Mayan ball game scoreboard thought to be over 1k years old found in Mexico
#60Those stone carvers must be fast, since they were presumably doing it in realtime. /s
Seriously, it's not a scoreboard.