Did Heads Really Roll on Ancient Ball Courts?

Wilcox is considered Arizona's resident ball court guru. He co-edited and contributed to the 400-page tome The Mesoamerican Ballgame, and has published numerous papers on the subject. Even more telling, when his colleagues in the Arizona archaeological establishment are asked about the ball courts, they invariably recommend Wilcox.

The fact that there are ancient ball courts in the American Southwest seems to have come as a bit of a surprise to historians.

"Emil Haury, who excavated the site of Snaketown along the Gila River in the 1930s, was the first to argue in a modern sense that they're analogous to ball courts found in Mexico where the ritual ball game was played," Wilcox explains.

Today's sports fan might not make much connection between sports and religion, but in ancient times, the ball game is believed to have been steeped in ritual meaning.

There is some evidence that ball courts and the games played in them had some calendrical meaning as well, with events being held at specific times of the year as dictated by the positions of the sun, moon and stars.

The courts occur across a 400-by-400-mile area, radiating out from Phoenix, Wilcox says. The wide distribution "would have created exchange flows of goods... and so it may well have been a way of moving valuables across the landscape of southern Arizona."

Shells, pottery, salt and minerals like obsidian and turquoise traversed the area. Even copper bells and macaws from deep in Mexico, have been found at Hohokam and Sinagua sites. Just as fans attend-ing professional sporting events today find themselves inundated by vendors hawking their wares, it's possible that budding entrepreneurs were often at work in the vicinity of ball court events.

Cars fly by quickly on a two-lane road outside of Florence. It is doubtful that any passersby know they are just a few hundred feet from an ancient ball court. Bright-green irrigated fields nip at the edges of the state land on which the almost invisible structure lies. The tang of creosote fills the air. Mesquite bushes and broken caliche litter the interior of the depression. Henry Wallace, a senior research archaeologist with Desert Archaeology Inc. of Tucson, stands atop a small hill, once the side wall of the ball court.

"They're a tool for societies to use to get people together. That had to have been very important," Wallace explains. "If you want to meet potential spouses, expand your economy, maybe trade your pots... you need to get people together to make that happen. Ball games are great ways to do that."

The small court, which is 90 feet long by 60 feet wide, is well known to archaeologists. Still, it has never been fully excavated.

"I'd be quite happy to see this one left alone," Wallace says. "Because there are not enough of them. And there are enough of them that get hit by development. Excavation should focus on those."

While the vast majority of ball courts appear as little more than minor depressions in the ground, several have been restored, most notably one at Pueblo Grande in the heart of Phoenix, and the recon-structed site in northern Arizona at Wupatki, the only masonry court known to exist in the Southwest.

At Wupatki, heat rises from the 6-foot-high walls, which are composed of red and brown sandstone, rocks that are intermixed with black basalt boulders, some smooth, some pitted with small holes. The court, which was excavated and stabilized in 1965, is open-ended and situated down below the multilevel high-rise known as the Wupatki Pueblo. Discoveries at the soaring, red sand-stone village have shown it to be a melting pot of the Cohonina, Sinagua and Kayenta Anasazi cultures, and it is easy to imagine the groups intermingling, excitedly trading their wares, bartering and socializing as their favorite ballplayers battle on the court's smooth, dirt floor.

There appear to have been numerous versions of the ball game. Both rubber and stone balls have been found ranging in size from a softball to as big as a basketball. The game might have been played with sticks, and stone paddles have been found. There is ample evidence that a ball game was also played in which participants were allowed to strike the ball using only their hips.

Many courts had ringlike goals, so it's possible players had to pass the ball through them to score. The comparison to basketball is striking, though the ancient game appears to have been much more dangerous. Players wore protective equipment, not unlike modern-day hockey players, with headgear that was both utilitarian and highly decorative. Stone sculptures from Mesoamerica show that women also played the game, though it is not known if females participated in the sport in the American Southwest.

While it's true some archaeologists don't agree that ball games were played in these courts some contend the structures were used for dances or other ritual celebrations-the discovery in Mesoamerican burial sites of miniature ball courts, complete with tiny spectators and athletes frozen in midplay, goes a long way toward proving the ball game did exist. Surely the game was vital-some fans wished to take it with them into the afterlife.

Anne Montgomery of Phoenix spent nine years as Anne television sportscaster, including two years anchoring "SportsCenter" for ESPN. She has officiated amateur football, baseball, ice hockey, soccer and basketball games.

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