Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T16:24:55.308Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

THE TEOTIHUACAN BALLGAME AND THE BEGINNING OF TIME

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 June 2006

María Teresa Uriarte
María Teresa Uriarte
Affiliation:
Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, National University of Mexico, Circuito Mario de la Cueva, Ciudad Universitaria, Delegación Coyoacán, 04510 México, DF, Mexico
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper proposes a reinterpretation of the Tepantitla murals long known as the Tlalocan. Taking into account the numerous representations of different kinds of ballgames on these walls, along with the instances of the Maya glyph for pu, pu or pu[h], or “Place of the Reeds” (i.e. Tollan), this paper argues that this mural represents Teotihuacan as prototypical civilized city associated with the beginning of time and the calendar. Further evidence is provided by the images of “Scattering Priests” in the adjacent room, all of whom wear crocodilian headdresses associated with Cipactli, the first day of the central Mexican calendar. In both rooms, images of Tlaloc with hallucinogenic water-lily buds in his mouth reflect associations with the sun, the calendar, and the underworld. The murals of Tepantitla can be interpreted as a coherent program representing the central role of the ballgame in establishing Teotihuacan as Tollan, the place where time began.

Type
Research Article
Information
Ancient Mesoamerica , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , January 2006 , pp. 17 - 38
Copyright
© 2006 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Aveni, Anthony 1980 Skywatchers of Ancient Mexico. University of Texas Press, Austin.
Boone, Elizabeth 2000 Venerable Place of Beginnings: The Aztec Understanding of Teotihuacan. In Mesoamerica's Classic Heritage: From Teotihuacan to the Aztecs, edited by David Carrasco, Lindsay Jones, and Scott Sessions, pp. 371–395. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.
Broda, Johanna 2000 Calendrics and Ritual Landscape at Teotihuacan. In Mesoamerica's Classic Heritage: From Teotihuacan to the Aztecs, edited by David Carrasco, Lindsay Jones, and Scott Sessions, pp. 397–432. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.
Caso, Alfonso 1942 El paraíso terrenal en Teotihuacan. Cuadernos Americanos 6:127–136.Google Scholar
Caso, Alfonso 1946 Calendario y escritura de las antiguas culturas de Monte Albán. In Obras completas de Miguel Othón de Mendizábal, vol. 2, pp. 115–147. Talleres Gráficos de la Nación, Mexico City.
Caso, Alfonso 1967 Los calendarios prehispánicos. Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (IIE-UNAM), Mexico City.
Caso, Alfonso 1974 Codex Borbonicus. Akadeische Druck-u Verlagsangstalt, Graz, Austria.
Cohodas, Marvin 1991 Ballgame Imagery of the Maya Lowlands: History and Iconography. In The Mesoamerican Ballgame, edited by Vernon L. Scarborough and David R. Wilcox, pp. 251–288. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.
Davies, Nigel 1987 The Toltecs until the Fall of Tula. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.
Davoust, Michel 1997 Un nouveau commentaire du Codex de Dresde. Codex hiéroglyphique maya du XVIe. siècle. CNRS Editions, Paris.
Dobkin de Ríos, Marlene 1984 Hallucinogens: Cross-Cultural Perspective. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.
Fox, John W. 1991 The Lords of the Light versus the Lords of the Dark: The Postclassic Highland Maya Ballgame. In The Mesoamerican Ballgame, edited by Vernon L. Scarborough and David R. Wilcox, pp. 213–238. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.
Fuente, Beatriz de la 1996 La pintura mural prehispánica en México. Vol. I: Teotihuacan. IIE-UNAM, Mexico City.
Galindo, Jesús 2002 Cocijo: Deidad definitoria de una alineación calendárico astronómica. In La pintura mural prehispánica en México. Boletín Informativo, no. 17, pp. 22–28. IIE-UNAM, Mexico City.
Gillespie, Susan D. 1991 Ballgames and Boundaries. In The Mesoamerican Ballgame, edited by Vernon L. Scarborough and David R. Wilcox, pp. 317–345. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.
Grube, Nikolai 2002 El desciframiento de los códices mayas. In Libros y escritura de tradición indígena. Ensayos sobre los códices prehispánicos y coloniales de México, edited by Carmen Arellano Hoffman, Peter Schmidt, and Xavier Noguez, pp. 73–107. El Colegio Mexiquense, Toluca, Mexico.
Heyden, Doris 2000 From Teotihuacan to Tenochtitlan: City Planning, Caves and Streams of Red and Blue Waters. In Mesoamerica's Classic Heritage: From Teotihuacan to the Aztecs, edited by David Carrasco, Lindsay Jones, and Scott Sessions, pp. 165–194. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.
Kerr, Justin 1989–2000 The Maya Vase Book, vols. 1–6. Available at http://www.famsi.org.
Kirchoff, Paul, Lina Odena Güemes, and Luis Reyes García. 1989 Historia Tolteca Chichimeca. México, Fondo de Cultura Económica y Gobierno del Estado de Puebla.
Krickeberg, Walter 1966 El juego de pelota mesoamericano y su simbolismo religioso. In Traducciones Mesoamericanistas, pp. 191–313. Sociedad Mexicana de Antropología, Mexico City.
Lacadena, Alfonso 2003 Tradiciones regionales de escribas: Implicaciones metodológicas para el desciframiento de la escritura náhuatl. Paper presented at the 5th Archaeological Congress, Washington, DC, June 23.
Laporte, Juan Pedro 1989 Alternativas del clásico temprano en la relación Tikal-Teotihuacan, grupo C-6-XVI, Tikal Petén, Guatemala. Ph.D. thesis, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, UNAM, Mexico City.
Lee, Thomas A. 1999 El río La Venta y la civilización zoque. In Río La Venta: Tesoro de Chiapas, edited by Giovanni Badino, Antonio de Vico, Davide Domenici, and Italo Guilvio. Gobierno del Estado de Chiapas, Mexico City.
Lockhart, James 1992 The Nahaus after the Conquest. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA.
Martínez Donjuán, Guadalupe 1994 Los olmecas en el estado de Guerrero. In Los olmecas en Mesoamérica, edited by John E. Clark, pp. 143–163. Citibank, Mexico City.
Matos Moctezuma, Eduardo 2000 From Teotihuacan to Tenochtitlan: Their Great Temples. In Mesoamerica's Classic Heritage: From Teotihuacan to the Aztecs, edited by David Carrasco, Lindsay Jones, and Scott Sessions, pp. 185–194. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.
Morante López, Rubén 1996 Evidencia del conocimiento astronómico en Teotihuacan. Ph.D. thesis, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, UNAM, Mexico City.
Ortiz, Ponciano, María del Carmen Ramírez, and Agustín Delgado 1992 Las ofrendas de El Manatí y su posible asociación con el juego de pelota: Un yugo a destiempo. In El juego de pelota en Mesoamérica: Raíces y supervivencia, edited by María Teresa Uriarte, pp. 55–67. Difocur-Siglo XXI. Culiacán, Mexico.
Pasztory, Esther 1976 The Murals of Tepantitla, Teotihuacan. Garland Publishing, New York.
Rands, Robert L. 1953 The Waterlily in Maya Art: A Complex of Alleged Asiatic Origin. In Anthropological Papers, Vol. 151, No. 34, pp. 79–153. Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.
Schele, Linda, and David Freidel 1991 The Courts of Creation: Ballcourts, Ballgames and Portals to the Maya Otherworld. In The Mesoamerican Ballgame, edited by Vernon L. Scarborough and David R. Wilcox, pp. 289–315. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.
Schele, Linda, and Nikolai Grube 1997 The Dresden Codex: Part 2. In Notebook for the 21st Maya Hieroglyphic Forum at Texas, pp. 76–247. University of Texas Press, Austin.
Seler, Eduard 1963 Comentarios al Códice Borgia, 3 vols., translated by Mariana Frenk. Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico City.
Stuart, David 1988 Blood Symbolism in Maya Iconography. In Maya Iconography, edited by Elizabeth Benson and Gillet Griffin, pp. 175–221. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.
Stuart, David 2000 The Arrival of Strangers. In Mesoamerica's Classic Heritage: From Teotihuacan to the Aztecs, edited by David Carrasco, Lindsay Jones, and Scott Sessions, pp. 465–513. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.
Stuart, David 2003 La ideología del sacrificio entre los mayas. Arqueología Mexicana 63:24–29.Google Scholar
Taube, Karl 1989 Itzam Cab Ain: Caimans, Cosmology, and Calendrics in Postclassic Yucatán. In Research Reports on Ancient Maya Writing, No. 26, pp. 1–12. Center for Maya Research, Washington, DC.
Taladoire, Eric 2003 Could We speak of the Super Bowl at Flushing Meadows? La pelota mixteca, a Third Pre-Hispanic Ballgame and Its Possible Architectural Context. Ancient Mesoamerica 14(2):319–342.Google Scholar
Thompson, J. Eric S. 1960 Maya Hieroglyphic Writing: An Introduction. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.
Thompson, J. Eric S. (editor) 1975 Historia y religión de los mayas, Mexico, Siglo XXI Editores.
Tovalín, Alejandro 1994 Representación de un Tláloc en el Grupo Norte de Palenque. In Cuarto Foro de Arqueología de Chiapas, pp. 109–123. Gobierno del Estado de Chiapas, Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Mexico.
Uriarte, María Teresa 1996 De teotihuacanos, mexicas, sacrificios y estrellas. In La pintura mural prehispánica en México, Vol. I: Teotihuacan, vol. II, Mexico, UNAM-Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, pp. 393–399.
Uriarte, María Teresa (editor) 1992 El juego de pelota en Mesoamérica: Raíces y supervivencia, Culiacán-Mexico, Difocur-SigloXXI.
Vit, Ilan 2005 “Principios de urbanismo en Mesoamérica”, Revista de la Universidad de México, no. 22, December, pp. 74–85.
von Winning, Hasso 1987 La iconografía de Teotihuacan: los dioses y los signos, Mexico, UNAM-Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas.
Whittington, Michael E. 2001 The Sport of Life and Death: The Mesoamerican Ballgame. The Mint Museum and Thames and Hudson, Charlotte, NC.