Posted on Monday 26 April 2004

This stone panel shows the Mayan king Taj Chan Ahk installing a subsidiary ruler.

Archaeologists working deep in Guatemala's rain forest under the protection of armed guards say they have unearthed one of the greatest Maya art masterpieces ever found.

The artifact—a 100-pound (45-kilogram) stone panel carved with images and hieroglyphics—depicts Taj Chan Ahk, the mighty 8th-century king of the ancient Maya city-state of Cancuén.

The panel was excavated in perfect condition from a royal ball court. Exquisitely carved in precise high relief, the 80-centimeter-wide (31.5-inch) stone depicts the Maya king seated on an earth symbol and throne with a jaguar skin, installing subordinate rulers in the nearby city-state of Machaquila.
Researchers say the panel's text confirms Ahk's status as one of the last, great kings of classic Maya civilization who controlled a vast territory in the Petén rain forest. Ahk grew and held his power through savvy politics and economic clout, rather than war, at a time when most other great Maya city-states were in their final decline, experts say.

"This panel is incredibly important," Arthur Demarest, a Vanderbilt University archaeologist and excavation co-leader, said in a satellite telephone interview from the dig site. "Every once in a while you have a beautiful, spectacular piece of art that is also profoundly historically important."

"It is … the best piece of Maya art that has ever been found in an excavated context," he added. "It looks like it was made yesterday."

--- Archaeologists Uncover Maya "Masterpiece" in Guatemala

The hieroglyphics expert with the team, Federico Fahsen, has said that the stone panel "is one of the greatest masterpieces of Maya art ever discovered in Guatemala. The images of the rulers and the historical text are deeply and finely carved in high relief and miraculously preserved."

Hieroglyphic expert Federico Fahsen, right, and archeology student Ana Torres clean a newly excavated altar stone from the Cancuén ball court.

Guatemala's Minister of Culture, Manuel Salazar plays the flute over a newly excavated altar.

Workers helping to restore the palace at Cancuén about 200 kilometers (120 miles) north of the Guatemalan capital.Cancuén, one of the largest Mayan palaces found so far, was built between 765 and 790 A.D. by King Taj Chan Ahk.

Cancuén is located on the Pasión river in dense rainforest close to the Mexican border

A re-enactment of the Mayan ball game. One imagines that the modern day Mayans would have taken pretty well to soccer which also bans the use of the hands (but not the feet) and also makes it really damned hard to score. Soccer also has the advantage of not requiring a human sacrifice at the end of the game (well not usually, anyway)

The frieze, which was carved in the late eighth century, is seen as being especially significant because Cancuén was the capital of a very late Mayan kingdom. It represents a last flourish of the Mayan civilization before it went into steep decline after 850 AD.


After this time, for reasons that are not well understood, the Mayan suddenly stopped building stone monuments and abandoned their cities. No further inscriptions were made in stone however it known that the use of their writing system survived right up until the time of Spanish conquest.


Cancuén is the site of one of the largest Mayan palace complexes yet found and the stone panel was discovered as part of the excavation of the palace ball court. During ceremonial occasions the Mayans played a game which has been described as across between volley ball and basket ball in which two team competed to throw a rubber ball through one of two stone hoops.


The game was popular amongst all Mesoamerican groups and more that 700 ball courts have been excavated in sites scattered throughout Central America and even as far north as the United States. It has been played in one form or another since as early as 1600 BC. Less often appreciated is the fact that these Mesoamericans (Olmecs, in fact, a civilization which predates the Mayans) had already developed a process for vulcanizing rubber three millennia before it was "officially" invented by Charles Goodyear in 1839. The native process consisted of mixing the latex sap with the juice of the morning glory vine and heating it with the sun.


The religious significance of the game for the Mayans comes from a story in the Popol Vuh, the Mayan creation epic, in which the twin hero youths, Xibalba and Hunahpú, who like their fathers were big ball players and defeated the gods of the Underworld after being enticed to play the game with them.

Soon all the lords summoned the boys.

"Eh! Let us play ball, boys!" they said. At the same time they were questioned by [the Underworld Gods] Hun-Camé and Vucub-Camé:

"Where did you come from? Tell us, boys!" said the Lords of Xibalba [the Underworld].

"Who knows whence we came! We do not know," they said, and nothing more.

"Very well. Let us play ball, boys," said the Lords of Xibalba.

"Good," they replied.

"We shall use our ball," said the Lords of Xibalba.

"By no means, shall you use your ball, but ours," the boys answered.

"Not that one, but ours we shall use," insisted the Lords of Xibalba.

"Very well," said the boys.

"Let us play for a worm, the chil," said the Lords of Xibalba.

"No, but instead, the head of the puma shall speak," said the boys.

"Not that," said those of Xibalba.

"Very well," said Hunahpú.

Then the Lords of Xibalba seized the ball; they threw it directly at the ring of Hunahpú. Immediately, while those of Xibalba grasped the handle of the knife of flint, the ball rebounded and bounced all around the floor of the ball-court.

"What is this?" exclaimed Hunahpú and Xbalanqué. "You wish to kill us? Perchance you did not send to call us? And your own messengers did not come? In truth, unfortunate are we! We shall leave at once," the boys said to them.

This was exactly what those of Xibalba wanted to have happen to the boys, that they would die immediately, right there in the ball-court and thus they would be overcome. But it did not happen thus, and it was the Lords of Xibalba who were defeated by the boys.

"Do not leave, boys, let us go on playing ball, but we shall use your ball," they said to the boys.

"Very well," the boys answered and then they drove their balls through the ring of Xibalba, and with this the game ended.

--- Chapter 9, Popol Vuh

Scoring a "goal" in the Mayan game marked the end of the game because it was an extremely difficult task to achieve. The stone rings were arranged at right angles to the playing field and were mounted more than three metres above the ground. Furthermore, the ground under the rings sloped away at a rather steep angle and the ball, which weighed several kilograms, could be moved with neither hands nor feet. The players could only touch the ball with their elbows, their knees or hips. As an incentive to spur each team to win, the captain of the losing team would face decapitation...


After the Spanish conquest, the Church suppressed the game as a pagan practice however modern variants of the game now known as Ulama survive and are still played on Mexico's North-West coast.


Also newly discovered at the Cancuén ball court site is the third in a series of circular stone altars. Each of the three altars represents the figure of King Taj Chan Ahk playing the ball game against visiting rulers, the first being discovered back in 1905 and the second in 2001 only after having been recovered from looters.


For more information about the Mayan ball game see the following sites:


The Great Ballcourt at Chichén Itzá
The Ball Court at Uxmal
The Ancient City of Monte Alban
The Ball Game
The Mesoamerican Ballgame - Ulama
An old interview with Arthur Demarest about Cancuén

Thanks once again to Peter for the tip.