Football With Jesus Analysis

Mayans have been around for hundreds to thousands of years well I mean 300 B.C.E., and even made 50 cities in the lowlands in Guatemala. Now if that didn’t surprise you then I don’t know what would. Just picture in your head yourself farming, praying to the gods, and even making murals with thousand of stories to tell. Well I think that's enough talking so let's talk about something else like facts. In the olden days mayans built reservoirs to store rainwater for drinking and other reasons too.

The Maya were a people from Middle America, which includes modern Guatemala, Southern Mexico, and Northern Belize (Editors). The Maya civilization was considered to be “one of the most dominant indigenous societies of Mesoamerica,” (Maya). “The Maya excelled at agriculture, pottery, hieroglyph writing, calendar-making, and mathematics, and left behind an astonishing amount of impressive architecture and symbolic artwork,” (Maya). They also gave mankind the modern calendar (Jarus, Maya). The Mayans were a very advanced people, but one of the most important things in the Mayan culture was their religion/god worshipping rituals.

John Kass and Kevin Grier and Tyler Cowen are influential people that have the same opinion that football will end in the future. While they share many of the same key concepts but they have different attitudes of how the sport will end. In John Kass’s article “The End Of Football” appeals to the audience emotions through use of personal experience; however, “What Would The End Of Football Look Like” by Kevin Grier and Tyler Cowen is more persuasive through their credentials and objective.

“Both the Aztecs and the Mayans had a version of the game of basketball. The Mayans played the first basketball game around 500 years ago, although their ball was a human skull of a conquered foe!” (Faurschou, “History of basketball”). Aspects of the games included today’s basketball, American football, and

When people think of sports, some of the first things that come to mind are ball games such as football and basketball, cheerleaders, and expensive halftime shows. We rarely think about the origins of these organized games, which date back thousands of years to the subtropical regions of Central America. Today’s sports fans have nothing on the Mayans. The Mesoamerican Ball Game is the oldest known sport in the Americas. It was a ritual, political and social activity that involved the whole community. The basic form “consisted of two parallel mounds separated by a playing field, but the ball court evolved and took on an important variation with end zones forming an I shape” (Foster, 2002, p.233). These structures had sloping walls and benches, where

The mystery concerning the fundamental explanation for the collapse of the Mayan Civilization has been a major focus for researchers in the fields of anthropology and archeology for a considerable period of time. At the very core of this mystery of the Mayan collapse was the question of how could such a strong, stable civilization that had flourished for approximately twenty-seven hundred years disappear without a clear, rational explanation. As a result, researchers have put forth a large number of theories for the explanation of the collapse and subsequent decimation of the Mayan empire.

The games background is full of information and very interesting. From what we know the court is called tlachtli or tlachco and the ball is called an ulli. The court was shaped like an “I” with sloping walls all around it. And the walls were around 8 to 11 feet in height. The court was usually 200 feet to 300 feet in length. The Mayan court of Chichen Itza was 315 feet by 98 feet (Hill).The courts were beautifully decorated in plaster and paint. They used different animals to decorate as well like jaguars, snakes, and raptors. These represented human sacrifice. The court had lines along it and a main center line.

Were the Mayans really the savages everyone has made them out to be, or were they just normal, misunderstood citizens, just trying to make it through another day. The Mayans are not only one of the most mysterious cultures in history, but one of the most intelligent early civilizations, discovering things such as the concept of zero, and how to make accurate 365-day calendars. It is agreed upon that the people of Maya were way ahead of their time, but how much did they really know? They settled in Yucatan (now Mexico) between 2600 BC and 1800 BC and were the indigenous people of Mexico and Central America.

In the realm of the Classic Maya ballgame, there is much speculation based off carvings, and there exists little concrete knowledge. Overall, the ballgame served as a religious altar where sacrificial events took place, but various researchers find drastically different reasons for the act of sacrifice on the ball court. Miller and Houston explain, through a materialistic and political lens, that the Ancient Mayan ballgame served as a means for an individual, typically a captive of war, to play for their life; it was a political game to emphasize who was the stronger and authoritative society. However, Freidel, Schele, and Parker, through a spiritual and idealistic lens, see the ballgame as a ritualized reenactment of a mythological event involving the Hero Twins. Moreover, Miller and Houston’s argument, using archeological proof, is more convincing because Freidel, Schele, and Parker’s reliance on the Popol Vuh, written much later than the actual events it accounts, and a spiritual viewpoint exhibits a distorted story.

There happens to be tons of things that we had no clue about when it comes to the Mayan Empire. The last Mayan Kingdom existed until the year 1696, and the city of Tayasal is considered as the last independent Mayan kingdom (sharer). No one was really able to identify exactly what happened to the other kingdoms, but citizens are convinced that the Spanish brought a disease/virus to them that they were not informed about and it essentially killed of a lot of them. Although that happened there are still approximately seven million Mayans living amongst us now in the Americas. They pretty much eat the same foods as us like corn, beans squash, avocados, chili peppers, pineapples, papayas, and cacao. Finally, according to history, they were the

A game the Maya played was pok ta tok. It was a ball game, the ball they used was a five pound solid rubber ball. They could use their forearms and thighs to pass and hit the ball. The object of the game was to get the ball into hoops on either sides of the ball court. The hoops were over 20 feet above the court. The losers of the game had a punishment. The losers could be taken as prisoners or executed. The game was a large spectator sport, and was played during free time. High ranking captives were forced to play for their lives.

The Pre-Columbian peoples of the Mesoamerican area are a population that has since fascinated historians and archaeologists to this day. Exploration and investigation has brought to light the great advancements these civilizations made in the areas of art, technology, and even astronomy. By means of examining and analyzing the remains, the massive structures and artifacts left behind by the early people of these civilizations, we have come to know of their rich culture and traditions. One group that we know a great deal of, the Classic Maya, exhibited a culture that was not only sophisticated and ahead of its time, but also one of great art and rituals. What was of great significance to these people was the Mayan Ballgame. The

Massive temples hidden in the jungles of the Yucatan, mysterious stone stelas, and cryptic calendars eluding to advanced knowledge of the stars and mathematics are just some of the artifacts originating from the “Classic Maya” period (200 CE-900 CE). However, these popular items should not be the only defining characteristics of a society that dominated the Mesoamerican region for nearly a millennia. Dynastic lines, similar to those found in European houses, were important elements during this period in places like Palenque, Tikal, and Calakmul. Additionally, the Maya experienced violent and consistent warfare between localized powers and the backbone of their society, agriculture, suffered through several multi-year droughts. These factors

The leaders of the Mayan civilization were supposed to be god-like figures and had beautiful jade jewelry and adornments. The Mayan government was a hierarchical state ruled by kings and priests with a royal family. This means that the royal family has most of the power and wealth. In order to keep the power within the family a queen ruling was quite possible if there was not any men eligible to be king. The Mayan civilization was not a democracy so that means that the positions next in power were decided by the king and royal family which also means that if people were willing to pay the royal family they could gain political status.

I cannot find one reason for divorcing theatrics from history – why must history wear such a dry cloak of dullness? I love theatre and you see its profound effects in my writing – especially tragedy. History is dramatized through speeches and conversations among the characters I portray, so much that people have coined the term ‘tragic history’ to encapsulate my works, in which I proudly claim ownership.