Oracle by David Wood, Sean Ellis Page A

pointing to a waist-high cylindrical pedestal at the center of the dais, upon which sat a dull black orb, about twelve inches in diameter.
    Jade laughed in understanding. “This isn’t a temple. It’s a ball court.”
    “ Ball court?” asked Dorion, disbelieving. “You mean like football?”
    Professor nodded, immediately catching on to Jade’s revelation. “Close. The ball game was played all over Central America. Just like with soccer today, everyone was nuts about it, though there were variations from place to place. The big difference though, at least from what we’ve been able to draw from contemporary accounts and artwork of the period, is that you weren’t allowed to touch the ball with your hands or your feet.”
    “ What then?”
    “ You had to use your hips.” He gave a little shimmy that Jade thought would have made Elvis envious.
    Jade laughed in spite of their predicament. “The ball game wasn’t just a sporting event. It was part of their worship and a way of determining who the gods favored. We know from wall paintings at Tepantitla that they played the ball game, or at least a version of it, in Teotihuacan, but no court has ever been discovered. I think now we know why.”
    Dorion raised his hands inquisitively. “We do?”
    “ They played it here, in the presence of the Great Goddess.” Jade looked back at the tunnel opening from which they had emerged. “The Goddess of the Underworld.”
    “ It’s a ball court and a temple,” Professor realized aloud. “They would come down here, probably for special celebrations, and only after appeasing the goddess by winning the ball game would a person be permitted to enter the tunnel and make the journey to the room with the spheres. Or maybe the winners were sacrificed by the priests, who would then enter the tunnel.”
    “ They sacrificed the winners?” asked Dorion, incredulous. “Hardly an incentive to play your best game.”
    “ Being offered to the gods was the highest honor. At least that’s what the priests told everyone. It’s the same kind of logic that gets people to blow themselves up with suicide bombs; be a martyr, virgins waiting in the afterlife—”
    Jade quickly cut him off. “There’s some evidence of that happening in the late Maya Classical Period and perhaps in Aztec society as well, but probably only on rare occasions. The game had different meanings in different cultures, and sometimes different meanings for different groups within a culture. It was recreation for the average citizen, could be used as a proxy for war, and as we see here, may have had religious significance.”
    Dorion pointed at the black orb. “And that is the ball?”
    Jade nodded. “Solid rubber. It probably weighs about ten pounds, so you can imagine that players got pretty bruised. Some of the wall art shows players wearing elaborate costumes which may have also been protective equipment, and in the murals at Tepantitla, the players are shown hitting the ball with sticks.”
    “ It’s a sphere.”
    Jade saw what he was driving at. “You think there’s a connection between the planet spheres and the ball game?”
    Dorion spread his hands in a gesture of uncertainty. “You are the expert. What do you think?”
    “ Sometimes a ball is just a ball,” muttered Professor.
    “ A sphere is not just a ball. Its shape is determined by gravity. The planets are spherical because particles of matter—including dark matter—will coalesce into spherical shapes. That is why planets and stars are round. I think it’s remarkable that the ancients understood this.”
    “ Or maybe the ancients just realized that spheres happen to bounce a lot better that cubes.”
    “ Even that is not something to be discounted lightly. The reason the sphere bounces better is because of the way energy is distributed throughout.”
    “ Guys,” Jade said sharply. “It’s a great debate, but let’s have it somewhere else, okay?”
    She hopped down from the dais