The Maya Ball Game and the Book of Mormon

[Nomad]

In a thread in the regular discussion forum (Start here.) beastie and I temporarily ventured into a tangential discussion concerning the famous ball game played in Mesoamerica in ancient times. In order to not further encumber that thread with our discussion, I have opted to move it here.

Succinctly stated, beastieâ??s thesis is that, where one finds a ball court in Mesoamerica, we may almost certainly conclude that ritual human sacrifice was practiced. The specific parameters of the discussion concern the accuracy of that connection in the context of the early Classic and late Formative (or â??Preclassicâ?) era of Mesoamerican history â?? in other words, that period more or less contemporary with what we would call Book of Mormon history.

In support of her argument, beastie has cited extensively from evidence (much of it uncertain even in the time period it occurs) from much later epochs of Mesoamerican history. The assumption that the Popol Vuh and other late Classic and post Classic sources (of which there are still precious few) give an accurate description of the standard Mesoamerican practice of the game, permeates the sources she has cited. And in response to my frequent observations that her evidence is not pertinent to the time period in question, beastie has suggested that what the textual and epigraphic evidence tells us about the period 500 â?? 1500 years after the era in question can be reliably extended back a millenia or more to tell us what the game was like in 100 B.C. or 250 A.D.

She cites the popular work Maya Cosmos (Friedel, Schele, and Parker) in support of this argument:

We can extrapolate the meaning of these symbols and images backwards into the Preclassic Maya world with considerable confidence. (p. 139)

Well, in the first place, if we read the entire quote in context, we see that it is speaking in very general terms about architecture and design considerations â?? not the nature of the ball game. But that is really beside the point, since this bold assertion is just plain false! It is what historical logicians term â??the fallacy of the perfect analogy,â? which:

â?â?¦ consists in reasoning from a partial resemblance between two entities to an entire and exact correspondence.â?

David H. Fischer, Historianâ??s Fallacies, Toward a Logic of Historical Thought (New York: Harper and Row, 1970, 247.

beastieâ??s consistent tendency toward reductionism in this respect permeates all of her lengthy and often tendentious posts on the thread concerning the relationship between ancient Mesoamerican ball courts and the practice of human sacrifice.

She routinely cites from sources speaking of conditions in the late Classic and post Classic â?? even Colonial â?? eras, and attempts to apply it to discussions of the conditions in the early Classic and Preclassic times.

But, in continuing my preface to this post, I would like to touch briefly on one other pervasive element of her argumentation on this and other topics related to Mesoamerica. She writes:

How We Know What We Know

Iâ??ve seen this line of thinking expressed so frequently in BoM discussions that I decided it was worth my time to address is. Iâ??m going to coin the term â??know nothingsâ? to designate the position that we really donâ??t know enough about Mesoamerica to make an informed judgment about whether or not the BoM really fits the background culture and chronology. The reasons given are normally that we really canâ??t know much about what happened thousands of years ago, that our inherent bias is too overwhelming, and that they didnâ??t have â??written recordsâ? (which, btw, is not an accurate statement unless qualified to time periods).

See here.

Well, one might justifiably take exception to several things in that short statement â?? especially the seemingly broad insinuation that we do have â??written recordsâ? from the early Classic and Preclassic, but I will resist the urge at present.

What she is essentially trying to say is that, in fact, we do have a rather clear picture of Mesoamerican history in all time periods.

She could not be more wrong. Indeed, the â??clear pictureâ? she is inclined to infer from her modest collection of texts is, in many cases (as Mark Wright has confirmed most recently) already out of date on account of the rapid changes in the field!

(Ironically enough, Wright cites one of the very authors of A Forest of Kings to demonstrate the obsolescence of the work! It doesnâ??t get any better than that, folks.)

This is a field that is changing, quite literally, from year to year, and in such a way that current epigraphical studies are often turning on its head the â??knowledgeâ? that was accepted by consensus just a few short years ago. (Just see if you can follow David Stuartâ??s career and not be stunned by how little we actually knew before he came on the stage.)

But our true lack of clarity concerning the far reaches of ancient Mesoamerica is something that is acknowledged by many of the current experts in the field. Speaking specifically of what we know concerning the ball game, Olivier de Montmollin wrote as long ago as 1997:

â??Precise meanings of the ballgame are elusive in the austere pre-historic record of the upper Grijalva tributaries.â? [part of the postulated Nephite area]

â??The Maya game is known iconographically only from the Middle to Late Classic, A.D. 400 â?? 900, with a climax in A.D. 700 â?? 750.â?

Olivier de Montmollin, A Regional Study of Classic Maya Ballcourts from the Upper Grijalva Basin, Chiapas, Mexico, in Ancient Mesoamerica, 8, (1997), pp. 36, 37, Cambridge University Press

Significantly, Montmollin and others present a picture of a ball game subject to great changes over the years. There are clear indications that the ball game, as played during the Formative (Preclassic) time period underwent a radical transformation beginning in the middle Classic and accelerating as we approach the Postclassic. The very orientation of the ball courts (previously along north/south lines, abruptly changes to an east/west configuration â?? which brings the ball courts into conformity with the Mexican variant of the game. This seems to argue persuasively for the idea that, once Teotihuacan extended its influence over the conquered area, the very nature of the ball game was fundamentally altered.

Montmollin continues:

Cohodas provides useful pointers concerning iconographies of the Maya vs. Mexican games. Because its associated representations emphasize game action or process, the Maya game seems to be relatively more focused on dynastic and temporal transformations. [i.e. symbology ] In contrast, the representations associated with the Mexican game emphasize game results, dual symbols, and post-game ceremonies â?¦ [i.e. winners, losers, and human sacrifices].

Ibid, p. 38, explanatory insertions my own

The over-arching point of this evidence is that the game, while maintaining several of its outward forms, was radically altered in terms of both its practice and meaning as time went on, and most abruptly at the time of the conquest of the area by the aggressively warring factions from the north.

Furthermore, as epigraphers have, in recent years, begun to unlock the secrets of the previously mysterious (and still often undecipherable) glyphs from the Preclassic era, we begin to see a much different picture than that suggested by beastieâ??s argument that:

We can extrapolate the meaning of these symbols and images backwards into the Preclassic Maya world with considerable confidence.

One of the biggest mistakes made by scholars in the past has been to interpret the iconography at any given site as being somehow indicative of day to day life among ancient Mesoamericans.

As that argument applies to the iconography of the ball courts, David Stuart (the current leading expert on Mayan glyphs) is working to disabuse us of these mistaken notions of the past. Stuart has established that most Mayan monumental inscriptions, rather than being any kind of indication of quotidian practices in ancient Mayan cities, are in fact simply dedicatory statements related to the specific structure whereon they are located. (See here. )

One of the rising stars in the world of Mesoamerican epigraphers is Alexandre Tokovinine, currently serving as a post-doctorate fellow on the staff of the Peabody Museum at Harvard University. Tokovinine has written extensively in recent years on the specific topic of the ball game. Wright has already made mention of one of these papers, delivered (if memory serves) just last summer. I originally intended to quote extensively from two or three different papers Tokovinine has published on the subject. However, in the interest of time, space, and relative attention spans, I think I will simply summarize his arguments, to the best of my ability, including only a few verbatim quotes at this time. If beastie then chooses to pursue the discussion, I will happily begin citing Tokovinine in detail.

In summary then, the most recent scholarship informs us that, in its earliest manifestations, the game was played by kings and nobles, who were impersonating various deities. The two teams each brought to the game â??stakesâ? of precious gifts that constituted the â??prize moneyâ? for the victor. No human sacrifices, ritual or otherwise, are attested in the iconography of these earliest epigraphic panels.

Stuart and Tokovinine argue that the scenes depicted at the ball courts themselves, concerned the local version of the creation myths and the ritual battle between the gods of life and death, and were apparently a function simply of the dedication of the ball courts, and likely had little relationship to the game as it was routinely played on the courts!

Interestingly enough, at Yaxchilan (ca. 250 A.D.) the only image that actually portrays a beheading is the depiction of a god engaged in a â??self-beheadingâ?. The god (in the impersonating form of the king himself) is sacrificing himself in behalf of the fecundity of the earth and prosperity of the people.

It is clearly purely symbolic!

In the most complete story to describe the game (as taken from the La Amelia hieroglyphic panels) the ball itself represents the individual being sacrificed, who is thrown down into the ball court by the holy king as the captive of the entity Balamnal.

A vessel recently discovered at the largely unexcavated site of the ancient city of Hixwits (K2803) manifests epigraphic evidence of the ball game played at that time (late Preclassic â?? 200 A.D.). Of this discovery, Tokovinine remarks succinctly:

Significantly, there is no warfare or sacrifice involved.

The early ball courts were dedicated, interestingly enough, to the deity represented by the ball thrown down as the â??sacrificeâ? by the â??holy kingâ? from the heavens.

The name of the deity thrown down to the earth to be sacrificed? yajaw-te.

Tokovinine writes:

â??â?¦ the most widespread patron of the ballgame (and probably the very patron of the game) is the so-called â??old deer god,â? recognizable for his man-deer traits. â?¦ the classic name consists of the number seven and a sign representing his bearded head, sometimes with a phonetic compliment -wa â?¦â?

â??â?¦ most monumental inscriptions are in essence dedicatory statements. The evidence suggests that the ballgame events recorded could be part of broader dedication rituals. Consequently, the human sacrifices mentioned or depicted could be in fact dedicatory, that is, associated with the ball court and its specific functions as a locus for the game (of this so special form of sacrifice), but not with the ballgame itself. The holy king would perform that sacrifice as a â??symbolic ballgameâ?? in a sequence of various dedicatory ceremonies. If this is true, was there a proper ballgame sacrifice at all?â?

(Interested readers will profit from both of Alexâ??s papers that can be viewed online:

Divine Patrons of the Maya Ball Game

The Royal Ball Game of the Ancient Maya )

In summation, the most recent scholarship definitively refutes beastieâ??s argument that the presence of a ball court in a specific locale throughout the continuum of Mesoamerican history is prima facie evidence of human sacrifice.

It is not! Indeed, the most recent epigraphic analysis is presenting us with a picture of a game that, in the Preclassic era, was radically different from the one portrayed in the Popol Vuh and referenced in other, much later, textual and epigraphic sources.

In terms of the application of this argument to the larger Book of Mormon debate, there is no persuasive evidence of human sacrifice associated with the presence of ball courts during Preclassic times in the cities of the Grijalva River valley â?? the area often postulated as a likely location for Nephite habitation.

P.S. I might venture to offer beastie* a little counsel if she is committed to pursuing her self-appointed role as would-be anti-Mormon Mesoamerican â??expertâ?:

You need to try as best you can to resist the overwhelming temptation to approach every source with the primary focus of proof-texting those elements that you believe will aid you best in your quest to prove the ahistoricity of the Book of Mormon. I strongly suspect that it only tends to blind you to any elements of the story that, in your judgment, are impertinent to your primary concern. It will also, I believe, prevent you from adapting to the rapid evolution of â??mainstream scholarshipâ? on the topic. With such a narrow focus, you canâ??t help but miss stuff on the periphery that is extremely relevant to a correct understanding of ancient Mesoamerican history, irrespective of the Mormon-related questions.

In so doing, you will greatly enhance your credibility among those who do know the subject-matter, and they will be more likely to cut you some slack when you occasionally yield to the urge to expose your true (and largely transparent) intentions.

Anyway, just a thought.

* beastie = A Mayan term signifying a â??star-eating dragonâ?. A Mayan text, in chiasmus form, speaks of the beastie. Find it here.)

[Nomad]

* (decided this was an unnecessary distraction)

[beastie]

I may come back tomorrow with more discussion, but at this point, I'm left wondering what your argument is. Your own linked article states:

As has been proposed by David Stuart, most monumental inscriptions are in essence dedicatory statements. The evidence suggests that the ballgame events recorded could be part of broader dedication rituals. Consequently, the human sacrifices mentioned or depicted could be in fact dedicatory, that is, associated with the ballcourt and its specific functions as a locus for the game (of this so special form of sacrifice), but not with the ballgame itself. The holy king would perform that sacrifice as a â??symbolic ballgameâ?? in a sequence of various dedicatory ceremonies. If this is true, was there a proper ballgame sacrifice at all?

Does the fact that the sacrifices may have been practiced during the dedicatory ritual rather than at the conclusion of the game alter the fact that human sacrifice was associated with ballcourts?

I'm more than happy to concede that apparently some scholars are now questioning the connection of the Hero Twins to ballgames throughout Mesoamerica, but this certainly doesn't disprove my point that human sacrifice was associated with ballcourts. I will reread your post tomorrow to make sure I didn't miss something, because it is late and I've done a lot of catching up tonight, so maybe I'm missing something crucial, but at this point, I really don't see how you've decoupled human sacrifice from ballcourts.

[beastie]

(Ironically enough, Wright cites one of the very authors of A Forest of Kings to demonstrate the obsolescence of the work! It doesnâ??t get any better than that, folks.)

You need to read Friedel's article which I linked on the other thread. He definitely is not saying that the concept of holy lord is obsolete, which is what Hashbaz seemed to insinuate.

[Nomad]

I may come back tomorrow with more discussion, but at this point, I'm left wondering what your argument is. Your own linked article states:

Does the fact that the sacrifices may have been practiced during the dedicatory ritual rather than at the conclusion of the game alter the fact that human sacrifice was associated with ballcourts?

I'm more than happy to concede that apparently some scholars are now questioning the connection of the Hero Twins to ballgames throughout Mesoamerica, but this certainly doesn't disprove my point that human sacrifice was associated with ballcourts. I will reread your post tomorrow to make sure I didn't miss something, because it is late and I've done a lot of catching up tonight, so maybe I'm missing something crucial, but at this point, I really don't see how you've decoupled human sacrifice from ballcourts.

What the most recent scholarship is now identifying is a clear evolution of the Maya ball game from the Formative through post Classic - a period of about 2000 years.

In the earliest manifestations (early Classic; Preclassic) the "sacrifice" is not a literal blood-letting. It is a symbol. The game is played by the ruling class in that polity. They are impersonating characters from the creation myth that is being acted out in front of the people (spectators). They (the players) each wear masks and costumes representing the role they are playing in the symbolic drama.

The iconography we see is from the event celebrating the ball court's dedication. To whom is the ball court being dedicated? Why, to the name of the bearded god (Yajawa) represented by the ball thrown down from the heavens to the court below by the "holy king" above. The ball is understood to represent the one who is to be symbolically "sacrificed" for the people. No human blood is shed. No one dies. Not yet, anyway.

In the oldest known iconography concerning the game, at Yaxchilan (early Classic, ca. 250 A.D.) the king is seen -- after having ascended the three "stairs" of conquest -- to be engaged in auto-sacrifice. He is beheading himself!

This is not to be taken literally, of course. Not at that time and place. It is simply a representational drama played out to remind the people of the underlying meaning of the game; a game whose format and rules were designed around a concept: the battle between the lord of death and the lord of life; a battle that, it is understood, began before the creation of the earth.

Incidentally, the lord of life is the ball thrown down from above. He is overcome by the lord of the underworld and death (Balamnal) and is killed. In fact, in some attestations the ball is ritually buried in the earth under the ball court. But the ball then takes on the form of a seed of maize, and though it dies in the earth, it yet brings forth fruit in abundance for the people. (The very shape of the ball court, with its sloping sides, is understood to represent a furrow made in the earth in preparation of the planting of the maize seed!)

Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.

Again, it is all symbolism for these earlier people.

But it changes in later generations. It changes dramatically. And eventually, as the Classic period matures, it undeniably becomes some kind of twisted gladiatorial orgy of blood.

But it didn't start out that way. And that is an important concept that I hope our readers will come to understand in consequence of this debate.

[poulsenll]

In the Popol Vuh there is a continuing theme related to the maize cycle. This cycle was of major importance to the Mesoamerican culture. The cycle begins with death as mentioned above followed with resurrection as the new plant sprouts. It is then followed by nurturing, growth and reproduction. Once reproduction takes place death must follow. In the Popol Vuh, the Quiche history is depicted as a maize cycle. They came from the east or more literally "they came from where the sun is born at the beginning of the day". To the Kiche the daily rebirth of the sun is coincident with waking up after the little death of sleep. The first thing the mother does is grind the corn. She is symbolicly grinding the source of life to feed it to her family so that they can continue to grow and mature. They traveled to the west or more literally to where the sun sets and dies to be born again the next day.

At the Maya meetings, Allen Christianson showed us pictures of cerimonies still performed by the Kiche that reenact this symbolic journey.

Another example of the importance of corn in Mesoamerica is found among the Olmec. At the Olmec meetings last year it was reported that it is now accepted that the cleft in the heads of the rulers shown on monuments and iconography represents the cleft in a seed of corn and indicates a belief that humans are symbolicaly seeds of corn and go through the same cycle as does the corn plant.

The meaning of the ball court is intimately tied to these concepts of the maize cycle and as pointed out is not necesarily related to human sacrifice.

Larry P

[beastie]

Nomad,

You've made some assertions that seem independent of the papers you have referenced. Let's start with this one:

The iconography we see is from the event celebrating the ball court's dedication. To whom is the ball court being dedicated? Why, to the name of the bearded god (Yajawa) represented by the ball thrown down from the heavens to the court below by the "holy king" above. The ball is understood to represent the one who is to be symbolically "sacrificed" for the people. No human blood is shed. No one dies. Not yet, anyway.

Please demonstrate where Tokovinine made this assertion in his paper.

(ps. Larry, I'll respond to you in a bit)

[Nomad]

I will undoubtedly continue to make reference to things not found in the papers for which I provided convenient links. Not all of the sources I might cite are quite as easily referenced as Alex's online papers. I'm sure your weary fingers can relate with that difficulty.

In any case, what I keep trying to illustrate -- and Tokovinine's papers I referenced do indeed illustrate this point -- is that we can see a distinct evolution in the game over the centuries. In the earliest attestations of the ball courts (Preclassic) there is no evidence of human sacrifice. By the Classic period, we begin to see sacrifices associated with the dedication rites of the ball courts -- although it remains uncertain whether these "sacrifices" of the nobles and rulers depicted in the iconography are merely symbolic or indicative of actual blood letting. By the late Classic we can see much evidence of actual sacrifice of ball players from the losing team.

That said, I can conveniently provide you with a typically-succinct quote from Tokovinine reinforcing what I've just said above:

Basically, there is no evidence for Maya sacrificing ball players until Chichen Itza stuff. That does not mean there were no sacrifices in the ball courts. There is some archaeological evidence for that at Seibal*, and then there are images/texts/sculptures apparently showing acts of human sacrifice or captives in the ball courts / stairs which seem to be associated with the dedication of these structures.

I know nothing about the Pre-Classic Maya ball game beyond the fact that there are ball courts at Pre-Classic Maya sites. There are no texts; no images.

Alexandre Tokovinine, personal e-mail correspondence to the author.

=============================================

* Seibel is a Classic site with ball courts oriented according to the Mexican pattern, east to west.

The bottom line is that there is no textual or iconographic evidence of human sacrifice occurring at Preclassic ball court sites.

On another note, I thought our readers might appreciate knowing the meaning of my new avatar. It is the beastie, presumably having just strained a gnat, now attempting to swallow a ball court:

[beastie]

In the Popol Vuh there is a continuing theme related to the maize cycle. This cycle was of major importance to the Mesoamerican culture. The cycle begins with death as mentioned above followed with resurrection as the new plant sprouts. It is then followed by nurturing, growth and reproduction. Once reproduction takes place death must follow. In the Popol Vuh, the Quiche history is depicted as a maize cycle. They came from the east or more literally "they came from where the sun is born at the beginning of the day". To the Kiche the daily rebirth of the sun is coincident with waking up after the little death of sleep. The first thing the mother does is grind the corn. She is symbolicly grinding the source of life to feed it to her family so that they can continue to grow and mature. They traveled to the west or more literally to where the sun sets and dies to be born again the next day.

At the Maya meetings, Allen Christianson showed us pictures of cerimonies still performed by the Kiche that reenact this symbolic journey.

Another example of the importance of corn in Mesoamerica is found among the Olmec. At the Olmec meetings last year it was reported that it is now accepted that the cleft in the heads of the rulers shown on monuments and iconography represents the cleft in a seed of corn and indicates a belief that humans are symbolicaly seeds of corn and go through the same cycle as does the corn plant.

The meaning of the ball court is intimately tied to these concepts of the maize cycle and as pointed out is not necesarily related to human sacrifice.

Simply associating the ballgame with the maize cycle does not preclude human sacrifice as a part of that ritual. From Olmec Art at Dumbarton Oaks (Karl Taube, 2004):

http://www.doaks.org/publications/doaks_on...ns/OlmecArt.pdf

It has been noted that the San Lorenzo sculpture known as Tenochtitlan Monument 1 portrays a ballplayer atop a bound captive. The seated upper figure wears the costume typical of Olmec ballplayers, including a mirror pectoral and, most importantly, the thick, protective belt used to strike the ball with the hip. The playing of hip ball with padded belts was by far the most common form of the Mesoamerican ballgame and continues to be played in Sinaloa to this day. The San Lorenzo monument indicates that as with later Mesoamerican peoples, human sacrifice was to the Olmec an important component of the ball-game ritual. Their game was deeply embedded in rain ritual and symbolism, much as if the ball game itself was a rainmaking act, with the dim of the bouncing ball representing thunder. A great many Early Formative ballplayer figures wear masks of the Olmec Rain God. The offering of rubber balls at El Manati also suggests the identification of the ball game with rain and water ritual. The aforementioned sunken court at Teopantecuanitlan provides the most compelling evidence for the relationship of the Olmec ball game to water and agricultural fertility.

The ball game is also widely identified with agricultural fertility in Late Postclassic Central Mexico. Among the fertility gods appearing in conjunction with the ball game are Tlaloc, Xochipilli, Xochiquetzal, and the maize god, Cinteotl. The Codex Chimalpopoca describes the last lord of Tula, Huemac, playing ball against the rain and lightning gods, the Tlaloque. In one episode of the Aztec migration legend, the Aztec construct a ball court at Coatepec. From the center of this miraculous court a spring emerges, allowing the Aztecs to irrigate their fields. According to Theodore Stern, the relationship of human sacrifice to the ball game was directly involved with agricultural fertility in Postclassic Mesoamerica. Rather than being a relatively recent development, the identification of the ball game with agricultural fertility was already highly developed among the Formative Olmec.

[beastie]

On another note, I thought our readers might appreciate knowing the meaning of my new avatar. It is the beastie, presumably having just strained a gnat, now attempting to swallow a ball court:

These conversations often tend to the bizarre. In your mind, I'm straining at a gnat, attempting to swallow a ball court, as if your post here had somehow decimated my point. Yet the reality is that all the essays linked demonstrate is that there's some contention in regards to how wide-spread the Hero Twin association with the ballgame was. The article you cited states that there was human sacrifice associated with ball courts in the Classic period, and the email you shared states:

Basically, there is no evidence for Maya sacrificing ball players until Chichen Itza stuff. That does not mean there were no sacrifices in the ball courts. There is some archaeological evidence for that at Seibal*, and then there are images/texts/sculptures apparently showing acts of human sacrifice or captives in the ball courts / stairs which seem to be associated with the dedication of these structures.

I know nothing about the Pre-Classic Maya ball game beyond the fact that there are ball courts at Pre-Classic Maya sites. There are no texts; no images.

So we have clear evidence of human sacrifice from the classic period. We have a continuity of basic mythology and worldview between the classic and preclassic periods. We have some archaeological evidence of sacrifice at Seibal, and images/texts/sculptures apparently showing acts of human sacrifice, etc etc.... and yet, to you, this constitutes conclusive evidence that, as you stated "No human blood is shed. No one dies. Not yet, anyway."

Ok.

Remember the context of this particular debate, btw. Cdowis asked for evidence of widespread human sacrifice prior to 200 AD. The ballcourts were just one of numerous evidences I shared of just that. All the other evidences have been ignored, and a great deal of attention has been paid to attempting to decouple human sacrifice from the ballgame, and in the end, your argument is just as it's always been, even before sharing these supposedly paradigm-shattering articles.

[Nomad]

I just wanted to check in very briefly and verify that I will be responding on this thread as soon as an opportunity presents itself. My time is very limited this week.

One quick observation/question for beastie: You do understand, don't you, the significance of the ball courts being oriented on an east/west as opposed to a north/south axis?

Again, I'll be back with more as soon as possible ...

[beastie]

Yes, I've read about the significance of orientation.

BTW, I'm curious - has the bulk of your reading about ancient Mesoamerica been online articles?

[Nomad]

Yes, I've read about the significance of orientation.

BTW, I'm curious - has the bulk of your reading about ancient Mesoamerica been online articles?

An invitation to compare bibliographies. From one acknowledged amateur to another.

Classic!

Believe me, darling, we're all curious.

I tell you what, you show me yours first and then I'll show you mine.

I've always liked this game.

OK, that's all the fun I can spare today. Important people are calling. (I hope they're not calling to say I've exceeded my quota for wikipedia viewing this month! )

[beastie]

I wasn't asking for a specific bibliography, although I'd love to know which sources led you to believe a polity numbering 1 to 2 million would be minor in Mesoamerica.

I listed bibliographies on my website. With some minor exceptions, I've read all the books I cite. There were a few texts I couldn't obtain but read parts of online, but I own and have read the vast majority listed, as well as others that I didn't cite on my website.

[Nomad]

Well, after another very busy period, I have finally gotten around to reading beastieâ??s replies on this thread. Somewhat to my surprise, she really didnâ??t have a lot to say on the topic, except to just kind of wag her finger and reiterate several of her previous non sequiturs.

Remember that the entire basis of our discussion was beastieâ??s claim that the presence of a ball court in any given locality is prima facie evidence that human sacrifice was being conducted by the residents thereof. In terms of Book of Mormon historicity, the crux of beastieâ??s argument is that we canâ??t expect there to be Nephites in any place where we find a Mesoamerican ball court, since she believes we can assume that Nephites would never have been involved in human sacrifice.

I can perceive several flawed assumptions in her arguments. I will select just a few that I consider most worthy of rebuttal.

In the first place, my reading of the Book of Mormon reveals a violent world of locally-ruled polities where all kinds of â??human sacrificeâ? is occurring. Just off the top of my head I can think of the people of Ammonihah sacrificing women and children for their beliefs and King Lamoni â??sacrificingâ? incompetent drovers for losing his sheep. Later on we read Mormon bemoaning the fact that his own people have adopted the abhorrent practice of ritual human sacrifice. So, despite my continuing argument that the presence of a ball court does not automatically equate to the practice of human sacrifice, I would also argue that the Book of Mormon often mentions the presence of barbarous practices in erstwhile â??Nephiteâ? areas.

We can well imagine how a modern archaeological survey would characterize the discovery of the remains of the women and children from Ammonihah: it would detail the bloody rituals of the local religion and paint it all in vivid colors and broad strokes. Then it would eventually find itself onto the pages of mormonmesoamerica.com as â?? and this is where the irony piles deep â?? evidence against the Book of Mormon.

As Brant Gardner has come to recognize only too well, the real problem here is not what the archaeologists and anthropologists tell us about ancient Mesoamerica, but rather the manner in which beastie insists on reading the text of the Book of Mormon. Her unyieldingly dogmatic and intellectually rigid approach to the text cannot help but return flawed results. (I couldnâ??t help but notice that she has continued, on the thread where this discussion originated, to pile citation upon citation from the Book of Mormon, presumably in defense of her assumption that the book is talking about a ancient Nephite superpower that ruled from sea to sea, etc., etc., ad infinitum. She appears to believe that she can carry her argument on the basis of the sheer weight of her voluminous citations. Somehow I suspect sheâ??s been doing this very thing since her earliest high-school writing assignments.)

Nevertheless, in order to focus this particular discussion, I will remind the reader that I challenged beastieâ??s attempt to uncritically associate the presence of a ball court with the practice of human sacrifice â?? especially during the Maya preclassic period, from which there is no evidence suggesting a connection between the ball game and human sacrifice. The topic of the Mesoamerican ball game just happens to be one to which I have dedicated a considerable amount of study over the years, and so I immediately recognized the flaws in her arguments.

You see, another of beastieâ??s biggest problems â?? in addition to her struggles with Book of Mormon reading comprehension â?? is her shockingly na

[beastie]

I'll have to come back to your other points later, but just want to respond to one thing now:

Most importantly, beastie has not shown evidence of human sacrifice in the Grijalva River valley in Preclassic times. Remember, that was the whole point!

On February 20 I posted the following information on the original thread here:

http://www.mormonapologetics.org/index.php...entry1208602079

Hereâ??s more detailed information about Chiapa de Corzo, in an essay by Clark and Hansen, in the book Royal Courts of Ancient Maya:

The proximity of royal compounds to primary temples implies that kings and other royal member of the court, including priests, were involved in rituals associated with these edifices. At La Libertad and Chiapa de Corzo, burials of kings accompanied in death by human sacrificial victims (see Lee 1969) have been exhumed from the largest pyramids closest to the royal compounds, and their burials there signal the kingsâ?? intimate association with the sacred rites that took place at summit temples.

Nomad,

This type of carelessness on your part is discouraging, and I'm undecided whether or not I'm going to spend any more time on this with you. Perhaps tomorrow I will have more patience.

And, btw, the "whole point" was to demonstrate that human sacrifice was widespread in ancient Mesoamerica prior to 200 AD, as per cdowis' challenge. He stated that evidence of widespread human sacrifice would be problematic for the BoM. I did provide several citations that demonstrate just that, despite cdowis' refusal to admit it.

[beastie]

Remember that the entire basis of our discussion was beastieâ??s claim that the presence of a ball court in any given locality is prima facie evidence that human sacrifice was being conducted by the residents thereof. In terms of Book of Mormon historicity, the crux of beastieâ??s argument is that we canâ??t expect there to be Nephites in any place where we find a Mesoamerican ball court, since she believes we can assume that Nephites would never have been involved in human sacrifice.

More carelessness on your part. I suspect this entire argument is a strawman occurring largely in your own mind. I never asserted that we canâ??t expect Nephites to be in any place where we find a Mesoamerican ball court. The entire reason I began to discuss human sacrifice and ballcourts was in response to cdowisâ??s challenge:

http://www.mormonapologetics.org/index.php...fice&st=300

cdowis

May I make one suggestion as an example. If Beastie can show that human sacrifice was widespread in mesoamerica during the specific BOM time period (prior to 250BCE), this would be IMO good evidence contradicting the BOM.

In fact, I even questioned him as to why this would constitute good evidence contradicting the BoM.

beastie

Why would that contradict the BoM?

Before I take the time to do this, what would you consider evidence that it was 'widespread'?

Cdowisâ??s response:

Having read the BOM, I read that Mormon was horrified at the human sacrifices during the war of extermination. I judge his comment sufficient that human sacrifice was either very rare, or unknown until that time. I could be wrong, but not very often when it comes to the BOM text. One of the Lamanite kings did talk about drinking the blood of his enemy, so anything is possible, but I still don't see that as strong evidence for human sacrifice. It would have been listed among the abominations of the Nephites and Lamanites prior to this war, IMO.

"Widespread" includes Lamanites and anyone under the Nephite sphere of influence. Pretty much all of mesoamerica. Human sacrifice should show up in murals, etc, as they did in later times, so you should have no difficulty finding such evidence, if it exists for THAT time period.

Widespread means simply multiple locations, not just one isolated location which may have been hidden from Nephite eyes (Gaddianton robbers, for example).

I think evidence of human sacrifice during the pre-300AD era would give me pause. I think it would be very difficult to explain in the context of our discussion here. I'm not an archeologist, so I'm sticking my neck out here. I have no idea what you may find.

This is what prompted the entire conversation. I made no assertions about whether or not Nephites could exist in an area in which human sacrifice took place. In fact, as I stated in the original thread, I consider this a peripheral issue, and the main reason I followed up on it was to see if cdowis really would rethink the BoM after having been given evidence of pre-300 AD human sacrifice in ancient Mesoamerica.

The real issue, to me, is what kind of polity is described in the BoM, and how powerful it would be in relation to other Mesoamerican polities. This is why I asked you what youâ??ve read that has led you to believe that a polity consisting of 1 to 2 million people would be minor in ancient Mesoamerica.

[Nomad]

Beastie has now officially entered into 100% spin doctor mode, thus signaling her apparent desire to end this discussion as soon as possible. I intend to oblige her, but not without a brief review of how we got here:

Larry Poulsen made a very specific request:

Please indicate your sources for human sacrifice in the Grijalva river valley. What little archeology done in that region was done by the NWAF and showed no evidence of human sacrifice. No carved stellae, no sacrificial alters and no buried victims.

See here.

To which beastie chose to reply by arguing that human sacrifice was proved by the existence of ball courts in that area! See here.

She concluded her post with this citation:

And in case there's any doubt what the primary purpose of ballcourts was:

Same text [The Mesoamerican Ballgame, Scarborough and Wilcox, 1993] page 196:

Evidence of the ballgame in our delimited region ranges from architectural ballcourts, to monumental stone sculpture bearing explicit ballgame iconography, to portable ballgame paraphernalia replicated in stone, to thematically decorated pottery. Initial ballgame themes appear during the Late Preclassic and Protoclassic (500BC- AD200), intensify as a trait complex during the Teotihuacan contact period at the outset of the Middle Classic (AD 400), and continue to the end of the Late Classic. During the Postclassic there is an absence of ballgame data on the coast, though they persist in the adjacent highlands.

More of a mytho-religious ritual than a sport, the game usually culminated in human sacrifice â?? normally decapitation.

(I would like to note, parenthetically, that this 1993 volume by Scarborough and Wilcox is all but obsolete as of 2009. It falls squarely into the category of outdated works condemned by Tokovinine and Wright. Even in 1993, it amounted to little more than a listing of the various archaeological sites known to contain ball courts as of 1991. It contains very little in the way of authentic analysis of the meaning and manner of the ball game in the various eras of Mesoamerican history, and when it makes claims like the last sentence above, it is making assertions unsupported by actual evidence, especially in terms of what we know of the Preclassic, as Tokovinine has so convincingly demonstrated.)

At any rate, I then pointedly inquired:

Are you quite sure, beastie, that you are prepared to defend the argument that the presence of a ball court in pre-classic times = ritual human sacrifice?

To which she then replied:

â?¦ scholars uniformly agree that the primary purpose of community ballcourts was the ritualized reenactment of an ancient Mesomaerican creation myth. This would result in human sacrifice.

So, here are the facts:

• Larry Poulsen asked for evidence of human sacrifice in the Grijalva River valley in preclassic times;
  -
  
• beastie replied directly to Larryâ??s request by citing evidence of ball courts in the area, and by then informing us (â??in case thereâ??s any doubt what the primary purpose of ballcourts wasâ?) that ball courts equate to human sacrifice;
  -
  
• therefore, the area could never have hosted a Nephite polity.
  

That was her clear intent and the basis of her argument for several pages, until it became quite apparent that the argument was no longer tenable in the face of the most recent scholarship.

So now she is attempting to effect an impromptu redefinition of her argument, as she simultaneously dismisses my dismantling of her original argument as nothing more than me having never really understood that argument in the first place.

OK, beastie, we get it.

You want a way out of this discussion.

And having grown as weary of your tiresome ways as Brant did previously, Iâ??m more than willing to grant your desire. Iâ??m quite confident that anyone who actually followed this discussion from start to finish was able to discern the facts as they were revealed.

I hope those same readers appreciate that, contrary to beastieâ??s original argument, the presence of a ball court in a Preclassic Mesoamerican locale is NOT definitive evidence that human sacrifice was conducted there.

Indeed, much of the Classic ball game iconography indicating human sacrifice is now being reconsidered as certainly only related to dedicatory events, and possibly only symbolic at that, based on the advances in early Mayan glyph interpretation led by David Stuart and followed up by others such as Alexandre Tokovinine.

As pertains to her revised argument, it is simply not true that human sacrifice is attested ubiquitously throughout Mesoamerica in all periods of its history. Sometimes it can be demonstrated, and in other locales it appears to have never occurred.

Mmmm â?¦ that sounds consistent with the picture painted in the Book of Mormon!

Anyway, this has been an interesting and enlightening discussion in many ways. I think many of our readers have been enabled to â?? perhaps for the first time â?? see through the methods employed by beastie in attempting to overwhelm the average person with a mountain of opaque (and often out-of-date or irrelevant) citations from her burgeoning Mesoamerican library of two dozen or so volumes. The exmormon crowd has produced quite a champion to dispatch deluded chumps like John Clark, John Sorenson, Richard Hansen, Mark Wright, and Brant Gardner.

In that light, I close with a reiteration of the unsolicited advice I offered to beastie earlier:

You need to try as best you can to resist the overwhelming temptation to approach every source with the primary focus of proof-texting those elements that you believe will aid you best in your quest to prove the ahistoricity of the Book of Mormon. I strongly suspect that it only tends to blind you to any elements of the story that, in your judgment, are impertinent to your primary concern. It will also, I believe, prevent you from adapting to the rapid evolution of â??mainstream scholarshipâ? on the topic. With such a narrow focus, you canâ??t help but miss stuff on the periphery that is extremely relevant to a correct understanding of ancient Mesoamerican history, irrespective of the Mormon-related questions.

In so doing, you will greatly enhance your credibility among those who do know the subject-matter, and they will be more likely to cut you some slack when you occasionally yield to the urge to expose your true (and largely transparent) intentions.

Anyway, just a thought.

[beastie]

Oh, I'll be back later to deal with more details. I just want note that you are quite brazen in your accusation of spin-doctoring. You can't provide a quote from me making the assertions you have now attributed to me, and yet you claim *I'm* the one doing to spinning. Even more brazen is your obvious ignoring the fact that many pages ago I provided the exact evidence you claim "was the whole point", and yet, according to you, I neglected to provide. You even repeat Poulsen's request:

Please indicate your sources for human sacrifice in the Grijalva river valley. What little archeology done in that region was done by the NWAF and showed no evidence of human sacrifice. No carved stellae, no sacrificial alters and no buried victims.

and then IGNORE the fact that I provided a direct quote from CLARK AND HANSEN that asserted that human sacrificial remains were buried with kings in Chiapa de Corzo. Did you imagine I wouldn't notice?

The fact remains that all of your rambling has done nothing to alter what I stated long ago. The articles you cited did *not* decouple the ballgame from human sacrifice, as you asserted. All they did was provide evidence that the Hero-Twin myth was not the universal link. In the end, your argument is the same tired old argument that cdowis and others peddle - ie, you claim that scholars can make no justified assertions about preclassic mesoamerica because there isn't written evidence. If that is your conviction, you shouldn't bother yourself with Mesoamerican studies at all.

And, btw, I'm still waiting to hear what texts you've read that gave you the idea that a polity of one to two million people in Mesoamerica would be minor.

So far your bravado is unwarranted.

[beastie]

In the first place, my reading of the Book of Mormon reveals a violent world of locally-ruled polities where all kinds of â??human sacrificeâ? is occurring. Just off the top of my head I can think of the people of Ammonihah sacrificing women and children for their beliefs and King Lamoni â??sacrificingâ? incompetent drovers for losing his sheep. Later on we read Mormon bemoaning the fact that his own people have adopted the abhorrent practice of ritual human sacrifice. So, despite my continuing argument that the presence of a ball court does not automatically equate to the practice of human sacrifice, I would also argue that the Book of Mormon often mentions the presence of barbarous practices in erstwhile â??Nephiteâ? areas.

Well then your argument is with cdowis. He is the one that made the assertion that evidence of pre-300 AD human sacrifice would be problematic for the Book of Mormon. You still have not provided a single quote from me wherein I make such an assertion.

As Brant Gardner has come to recognize only too well, the real problem here is not what the archaeologists and anthropologists tell us about ancient Mesoamerica, but rather the manner in which beastie insists on reading the text of the Book of Mormon. Her unyieldingly dogmatic and intellectually rigid approach to the text cannot help but return flawed results. (I couldnâ??t help but notice that she has continued, on the thread where this discussion originated, to pile citation upon citation from the Book of Mormon, presumably in defense of her assumption that the book is talking about a ancient Nephite superpower that ruled from sea to sea, etc., etc., ad infinitum. She appears to believe that she can carry her argument on the basis of the sheer weight of her voluminous citations. Somehow I suspect sheâ??s been doing this very thing since her earliest high-school writing assignments.)

Amazing. You stated yourself that the Nephite polity would likely be around one to two million people. Hey, I agree!!

Now prove that a polity of one to two million people would be considered minor in that time period in Mesoamerica.

Iâ??ll come back for more later.

[beastie]

Nevertheless, in order to focus this particular discussion, I will remind the reader that I challenged beastieâ??s attempt to uncritically associate the presence of a ball court with the practice of human sacrifice â?? especially during the Maya preclassic period, from which there is no evidence suggesting a connection between the ball game and human sacrifice. The topic of the Mesoamerican ball game just happens to be one to which I have dedicated a considerable amount of study over the years, and so I immediately recognized the flaws in her arguments.

No evidence suggesting a connection between the ball game and human sacrifice? Not even suggesting a connection? That is a remarkable assertion, given the fact that so many scholars beg to differ

So, here are the facts:

â?¢ Larry Poulsen asked for evidence of human sacrifice in the Grijalva River valley in preclassic times;

-

â?¢ beastie replied directly to Larryâ??s request by citing evidence of ball courts in the area, and by then informing us (â??in case thereâ??s any doubt what the primary purpose of ballcourts wasâ?) that ball courts equate to human sacrifice;

-

â?¢ therefore, the area could never have hosted a Nephite polity.

That was her clear intent and the basis of her argument for several pages, until it became quite apparent that the argument was no longer tenable in the face of the most recent scholarship.

So now she is attempting to effect an impromptu redefinition of her argument, as she simultaneously dismisses my dismantling of her original argument as nothing more than me having never really understood that argument in the first place.

I already pointed this out, but once I got more into the meat of your response it became quickly apparent there wasnâ??t much meat, so we come down to this.

Once again, I never made the argument you are attributing to me. You insist that this is the argument I made, and now Iâ??m spin-doctoring, so I am going to have to insist that you provide direct quotations from me wherein I made this argument.

It is utterly ridiculous that you have constructed a strawman argument, and argued from that basis, and when I point out that you are arguing against a position I never took, you insist I am now altering my position. So itâ??s time to put up, Nomad. Letâ??s see the direct quotations from me wherein I made the argument you have attributed to me.

I will repeat this, in the probably vain hope that you will finally recognize its existence:

Hereâ??s more detailed information about Chiapa de Corzo, in an essay by Clark and Hansen, in the book Royal Courts of Ancient Maya:

The proximity of royal compounds to primary temples implies that kings and other royal member of the court, including priests, were involved in rituals associated with these edifices. At La Libertad and Chiapa de Corzo, burials of kings accompanied in death by human sacrificial victims (see Lee 1969) have been exhumed from the largest pyramids closest to the royal compounds, and their burials there signal the kingsâ?? intimate association with the sacred rites that took place at summit temples.

[beastie]

Just for those who may need help connecting the dots....

cdowis's argument is as follows:

Having read the BOM, I read that Mormon was horrified at the human sacrifices during the war of extermination. I judge his comment sufficient that human sacrifice was either very rare, or unknown until that time. I could be wrong, but not very often when it comes to the BOM text. One of the Lamanite kings did talk about drinking the blood of his enemy, so anything is possible, but I still don't see that as strong evidence for human sacrifice. It would have been listed among the abominations of the Nephites and Lamanites prior to this war, IMO.

"Widespread" includes Lamanites and anyone under the Nephite sphere of influence. Pretty much all of mesoamerica. Human sacrifice should show up in murals, etc, as they did in later times, so you should have no difficulty finding such evidence, if it exists for THAT time period.

Widespread means simply multiple locations, not just one isolated location which may have been hidden from Nephite eyes (Gaddianton robbers, for example).

I think evidence of human sacrifice during the pre-300AD era would give me pause. I think it would be very difficult to explain in the context of our discussion here. I'm not an archeologist, so I'm sticking my neck out here. I have no idea what you may find.

His argument is not that if human sacrifice were widespread, then that would mean no Nephite polity was host. He is saying that Mormon expressed horror at the human sacrifice occurring at the end of the BoM. I agree, this seems to indicate that this was either a new practice or a severe escalation. In response, I cited not only the ballcourt evidence, but many other preclassic evidences as well.

What I do find the most interesting about this particular exchange is that the ballcourt discussion received far more attention than all the scriptures I provided on the thread that demonstrates what powerful polities the Nephite and Lamanite polities were, yet it is a relatively minor point, delved into in direct response to cdowis (and, btw, I had to remind Nomad of that fact on the original thread, as well, when he acted as if the other evidences of human sacrifice were not relevant.)

[beastie]

I skimmed back over Nomad's posts on this thread to check for one specific item: did Nomad ever quote from a scholar making the assertion that there was no human sacrifice associated with the ballgame in the preclassic period?

Unless I've missed the citation, in which case I'll happily retract this accusation, the answer is no, he has not. Nomad has made this assertion - repeatedly - himself, and has assured us that's what the latest research shows, but he has yet to offer a statement from a scholar making that assertion. Frankly, given his demonstrated propensity toward strawmen, I'd like to see the evidence myself in order to judge whether or not that's what the scholar was actually saying.

So here's another challenge, Nomad: I'd like to see at least one direct quotation from a scholar making the assertion that there was no human sacrifice associated with the ballgame in the preclassic period. (along with, of course, my previous request to know which texts led you to believe a polity of 1-2 million in ancient Mesoamerica would be "minor")