List of Publications on Ballgame Sculptures and other Ballgame Topics and also FLAAR Reports on ballgame Sculptures Xeroxed but not yet formally Published of Nicholas Hellmuth, to assist students, teachers, professors and interested general public
I am now in the process of trying to find all the hand-typed and xeroxed reports that I wrote on ballgames in the 1970’s-1990’s so they can be digitized and thus made available to students doing term papers and theses, to graduate students to help provide them information for their PhD dissertations, and to professors so they can consider including segments in their PowerPoint presentations for their classes. Plus nowadays in the digital world of 2022-2023 lots of Mayanists are giving lectures via Zoom for Maya societies and organizations.
Our team is also in the process of scanning all Hellmuth reports on ballcourts, ballplayers, post-game human sacrifice that have been published as chapters in books on the ballgames of Mesoamerica. All books that are no longer in-print should be scanned to be available to the new generation of students and scholars.
Below is a first draft list. If you know of any hand-typed xeroxed reports that are in your library, we would super-appreciate a scanned copy (that we can turn into a PDF). Best a scanned copy of a format that automatically is turned into MS Word (with this our own in-house team can correct the spelling mish-mash of typical scanners). Contact is FrontDesk symbol FLAAR.org (put the real symbol, remove the empty space, and that’s our email).
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Since this is a rubber ball ballgame, rather obviously Hellmuth has also studied the several vines whose liquids help coagulate the latex of Castilla elastica. We raise two of these vines in the FLAAR Mayan Ethnobotanical Research Garden. Latex of the rubber tree native to Mesoamerica does not bounce (it is just a sticky white latex). To make this latex into rubber that allows the ball to bounce you have to heat the latex with chemicals. Goodyear uses sulfur; the Olmec, Teotihuacan, Maya, Zapotec, Mixtec and Aztec used juice of any one of several wild vines. We found all three of these vines in Alta Verapaz during our field trips to these biodiverse areas in the recent decade. Then our FLAAR Mesoamerica team found all three of these vines in Parque Nacional Yaxha, Nakum and Naranjo during our Aug- 2018-July 2019 field trips in cooperation and coordination with the dual-park administrators. |
The ballcourt frieze of Chichen Itza is one of many well-known ball game scenes. Human sacrifice there is very similar to ballgame decapitation clearly shown on Tiquisate cylindrical tripods of half a millennia earlier (in the Costa Sur area of Teotihuacan influence along its trade route from Mexico to Costa Rica). However the series of over a dozen FLAAR reports is primarily on iconography: the symbolism of the outfits. The reports also focus on specific parts of the “costume”, much more than just the yokes, hachas, palmas and knee pads. The hats, often in sombrero size and shape, are key aspects. The leather “skirts” are also crucial to show the relationship (in some games) between deer hides worn by hunters and deer hides worn by ballplayers of Peten, Chiapas, Campeche, and elsewhere. The game was much more than just a sport: it was pageantry. We all know the human sacrifice aspects; but much of all the rest of the ballgame was simultaneously athletes proving their skills, together with a lot of pageantry (with their costumes).
Several of our reports are focused on separating ball game facts from ball game fiction. Fiction is the ball set in flames; fiction is that the winner was sacrificed. Lack of research results in the common statement “the ball was not allowed to be held in the hand.” True, the hand is not used in most ball games of Mesoamerica but several other ballgames, including of the Maya (and Bilbao, Cotzumalhuapa and elsewhere) are “hand ball games.” Best to realize the depth of research of decades has revealed the many often very different kinds of rubber ball games of Teotihuacan, Classic Veracruz (especially El Tajin), West Coast Mexico, Maya, Olmec, Zapotec, Mixtec, Aztec and elsewhere).
Misunderstanding in over half of scholarly reports is automatically using the word “yoke” (most Classic Maya wore what should be called ball game deflectors (most likely of wood and leather); not yokes; only players showing off Mexican style wore yokes with hacha or palma). Crucial is to realize that there were many different kinds of ballgame: lots more than just human sacrifice. Athletes across Mesoamerica perfected their skills in sports. So we at FLAAR (USA) and FLAAR Mesoamerica (Guatemala) are working to scan all the over dozen reports of past years, over a thousand pages, and re-issue each report to be as downloads. We need to find better software for the desktop scanners since a normal scanner leaves dozens of spelling errors on every page. Punctuation is turned into letters and letters are turned into punctuation. It takes days to correct the scans and put into MS Word so we can prepare a PDF. But we will keep working and start issuing the initial reports hopefully before the end of the year.
You can spell the Mesoamerican game as one word: ballgame, or as two words: ball games. We tended to use one word back in the 1970’s. |
Articles, Reports, and Documents by Hellmuth on Ball Games of Mesoamerica
- 1974
- Veracruz-style thin stone heads and ball game yokes from Escuintla, Guatemala. Katunob 8(2):41-45. Univ. of Northern Colorado, Museum of Anthropology. Greeley, Colo.
If anyone has all the Katunob series of reports in their library, we would greatly appreciate a scan of these 5 pages plus scan of front cover of that issue of Katunob and scan of the Table of Contents of that Vol. 8, No. 2 issue.
Available online: www.conabio.gob.mx/conocimiento/info_especies/arboles/doctos/25-cochl1m.pdf.
IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR A PLACE TO SEND ALL YOUR BOOKS
TO MOVE THEM OUT OF YOUR HOME, |
- 1975
- Pre-Columbian Ballgame: Archaeology & Architecture. F.L.A.A.R. Progress Reports. Vol. 1 No. 1. March 1975. About 30 pages.
- 1974
- The Escuintla Hoards, Teotihuacan Art in Guatemala. F.L.A.A.R. Progress Reports, Vol. 1 No. 2, June 1975. 76 pages.
Although not specifically on the ball game, there are so many ballplayer scenes in the cylindrical tripods of the greater Tiquisate / Costa Sur area that ballplayer scenes are included as Plates 8, 9, 10, 11. Ball game is mentioned on five more pages. So total of 9 pages on the ball game.
Download, no cost, no registration required: www.maya-archaeology.org/FLAAR_Reports_on_
Mayan_archaeology_Iconography_publications_books_articles/10_
Teotihuacan_influence_Mayan_art_incensarios_archaeology_Tiquisate_
Escuintla_Guatemala_4MB.pdf.
- 1976
- Teotihuacan, Cotzumalhuapa, Veracruz Art in Escuintla, Guatemala. Symposium on the Middle Classic Period in Mesoamerica, E. Pasztory, Editor . Columbia University Press.
Same observation as for 1975 Tiquisate area report (The Escuintla Hoards). The ball game is one of the most common scenes on cylindrical tripods of the Costa Sur.
- 1987
- Human Sacrifice in Ballgame Scene on Early Classic Cylindrical Tripods from the Tiquisate Region, Guatemala. FLAAR, Culver City, CA. 182 pages of text. 62 pages of illustrations, numbered but no pagination but final Index page has calculated the illustrations. Final page # at bottom is 245. XIV front matter + 245 pages = 259 pages
- 1987
- Ballgame Iconography and Playing Gear: Late Classic Maya Polychrome Vases and Stone Sculpture. FLAAR. Culver City, CA. 295 pages.
Continues pagination from Volume 1, so first page of Vol. 2 is 246. Continues to numbered page 472. Illustrations Fig. 63 through 122, then pages numbered 525-541. Final pagination should be a few numbers more, but 541 is enough (so Vol. I of 259 pages + Vol. 2 of 295 pages = 554. Not bad for the year 1987 (I hate to think of how many pages I would write today when hundreds more illustrations and photographs of ballgame related items are available).
- 1991
- A hunting god and the Maya ballgame of Guatemala: an iconography of Maya ceremonial headdresses. pp. 135-160 in The Mesoamerican Ballgame. Gerard W. van Bussel, Paul L. van Dongen and Ted J. Leyenaar, editors.
- HELLMUTH, Nicholas
- A review bibliography on the various prehispanic ballgames of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, including Maya, Mixtec, Toltec, Olmec, Aztec, Totonac art, etc. Foundation for Latin American Anthropological Research.
We do not have this in our library; if you have a copy we would really appreciate a scan or a donation of the book to our US office address.
Listed as for sale by: www.boekwinkeltjes.nl/s/?q=ballgames&t=0&n=0&zip=&dist=0
&lang=&img=0&shfee=0&tl=&prijsvan=&prijstot=&oud=0&.
- 1992
- Los juegos de pelota maya en México y Guatemala durante los siglos 6-7. Pages 169-197 in: El Juego de pelota en Mesoamérica: raíces y supervivencia. Maria T. Uriarte, editor. Siglo Veintiuno Editores. Mexico.
- 1994
- Notes on the ballcourts pictured in 16th century Mexican Codices: Aztec & Mixtec. A working paper of research still in progress. FLAAR. 160 pages.
- 1995
- Review of everything the Spanish wrote about ancient Ballgames. FLAAR. 67 pages.
- 1995
- An Annotated Bibliographic Introduction to the various pre-Hispanic Rubber Ballgames of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras: Olmec, Maya, Teotihuacan, Mixtec, Aztec, El Tajin. FLAAR. 311 pages.
Other than the impressive bibliography of Eric Taladoire on ballcourts, the 1995 FLAAR bibliography on all ballgame aspects is one of the largest such bibliographies of its date (over a quarter of a century ago). The over three-hundred pages are filled with descriptive books and articles on the ballgame. Reviews and discusses everything ever written on the ancient ballgames of Mesoamerica up to 1995, plus informs the reader which theories are useful, and which are nonsense. This is a copy of the author's own notebook (in other words, a work-in-progress). Even in its preliminary state it contains a wealth of information and serves as a standard desk reference on iconography and archaeology of the ballgames. This bibliography will save you weeks of searching for information elsewhere, since everything is neatly in alphabetical order and is cleverly cross-referenced. Today (2022) of course you can surf on the Internet and find even more articles, symposium reports, and web pages on the ballgames. But it helps to have tons of pre-Internet material available up front.
- 1995
- Who are the supernatural characters on the three Copan ballcourt markers? Foundation for Latin American Anthropological Research, Cocoa, Florida (Brevard Community College). 126 pages.
Distributed to attendees at FLAAR/BCC symposium on Maya archaeology.
- 1995
- Ballgame Maya Sculpture of Guatemala. The Ballgame Murals of Tikal and the Complete Corpus of all Maya Sculptures in Guatemala which pictures the Sacred Rubber Ballgame. Foundation for Latin American Anthropological Research, Cocoa, Florida (Brevard Community College). 186 numbered pages plus 58 unnumbered drawings and full-page photographs = 244 pages.
Distributed to attendees at FLAAR/BCC symposium on Maya archaeology.
- 1995
- All Eight Ballplayer Stelae of Bilbao, Cotzumalhuapa. XIII pages of Introduction by Dr. Lee Allen Parsons, 1991. Foundation for Latin American Anthropological Research, Cocoa, Florida (Brevard Community College). Xiii pages of Introduction + 129 numbered pages text + 123 pages of unnumbered photos, rubbings and line drawings = 265 pages.
I had taken an entire portable photography studio: cameras, tripods, lighting, light stands, etc. to the German museum where the eight ballplayer stelae of Bilbao had been exhibited for decades. The museum personnel were very helpful and cooperative. It’s not easy to move that much equipment in the EU when you don’t have your own large vehicle; but “when I needed to do something, I got it done.”
Distributed to attendees at FLAAR/BCC symposium on Maya archaeology.
- 1995
- Iconography of Maya sculpture in Mexico which portrays the sacred rubber ballgame: The Complete Corpus. Foundation for Latin American Anthropological Research, Cocoa, Florida (Brevard Community College). 139 pages + 59 pages of unnumbered photos and line drawings = 198 pages.
Distributed to attendees at FLAAR/BCC symposium on Maya archaeology.
- 1995
- Iconography of Seven Maya Ballplayers Sculpted in a Rio Usumacinta Style. Foundation for Latin American Anthropological Research, Cocoa, Florida (Brevard Community College). 150 numbered pages of text. 32 unnumbered illustrations = 182 pages.
Distributed to attendees at FLAAR/BCC symposium on Maya archaeology.
- 1996
- Iconography of Seven Maya Ballplayers Rio Usumacinta or Calakmul? Edited by Jack Sulak and updated from 1995 symposium workbook, with additional illustrations. 156 pages + 31 numbered but not paginated photos and line drawings = 187 pages.
To prepare ballgame reports for the FLAAR-BCC (Brevard Community College) symposiums on Maya archaeology was years of work. The photography throughout Mesoamerica was even more years. We did our best to type up reports for participants of the symposia each year but every report can definitely be improved. However each year I jumped into new topics and wrote hundreds or up to a thousand pages some years. So I preferred to have “lots of documentation out and available” rather than a short report that was completely edited, revised, improved and stationary. Jack Sulak kindly edited several of our FLAAR-BBC symposium reports and most of our FLAAR architectural reports of 1989 for our INAH project with Dr William Folan and colleagues at Santa Rosa Xtampak (Campeche). |
- 1996
- Iconography of Maya sculpture in Mexico which portrays the sacred rubber ballgame: The Complete Corpus. Foundation for Latin American Anthropological Research, Cocoa, Florida (Brevard Community College). Edited by Jack Sulak and updated with additional illustrations. 156 pages + 32 not paginated photos and line drawings = 188 pages.
- 1996
- All the Ballplayer Decapitation Stelae of Aparico, Vega de Alatorre, Veracruz, Mexico. Foundation for Latin American Anthropological Research, Cocoa, Florida (Brevard Community College). 38 pages text and 10 unnumbered pages of map, drawings, and full-page photographs = 48 pages.
My focus has primarily been on Early Classic and Late Classic Maya iconography. But since the Olmec, Teotihuacan, Classic Veracruz, Oaxaca and other civilizations of Mesoamerica had trade networks with the Classic Maya, lots of ballgame rituals and symbolism are shared. Since the ballgame friezes of El Tajin were thoroughly published by Michael Kampen already back in 1972, I did not focus on writing about El Tajin ballgame rituals: I prefer sculptures and ceramic scenes that are not as well known or not as thorough analyzed.
I also did not do a FLAAR Report on the ballcourt sculptures of Chichen Itza since they also have been published as line drawings elsewhere. Plus to photograph these at night would take a large team (for the needed lighting) and would take several evenings. I preferred to go to remote areas and photograph semi-abandoned stelae and steps in remote Maya sites that showed ballplayers.
- 1996
- Ballplayer Scenes Chochola Style. Foundation for Latin American Anthropological Research, Cocoa, Florida (Brevard Community College). 52 pages + frontmatter of 6 pages + 26 pages of photographs = 84 pages.
Almost all my iconographic research in the 1990’s was on stelae showing ball games or ballplayers, ball court markers (especially at Copan Ruinas, Honduras), steps (at Yaxchilan and elsewhere) that showed Maya ball games and rubber balls in action, and other stone sculptures. Obviously I also studied vases, bowls and plates that had ball game scenes (Hellmuth 1987), keeping in mind that the Kerr Database was not available so nicely arranged in the 1990’s as it is in recent years courtesy of FAMSI.
But I could not avoid noticing that a series of vases in Chochola Style showed ballgames, so I devoted a special short report to these.
- 1996
- Secrets in Stone: Yokes, Hachas and Palmas from Southern Mesoamerica. Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society. 250 pages.
I include this book here because lots of the information (even when not cited) and photos, especially on yokes and hachas, are from Hellmuth/FLAAR Photo Archive.
In 1996 I was hired by the Japanese National Museum of Ethnology (MINPAKU), Osaka, as a visiting professor in digital imaging of 35mm color slides of art and architecture of Mesoamerica by the Japanese government, to provide training in digital imaging to the museum staff. Rather obviously in 1996 there were almost no university courses in digital photography because all of us professors used a darkroom to process 35mm and medium format film (or sent our color images to Kodak to develop and return as 35mm slides).
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- 2008
- Sacred Ballgames of Mesoamerica: Iconography & Ballcourt Architecture. FLAAR. 91 pages.
Powerpoint presentation of ballgame regional diversity and iconography. 91 slides (in digital format).
- 2010
- 3D Laser Scanning Archaeological Objects, Maya Ballplayer Figure, Museo Vigua, Hotel Casa Santo Domingo, Antigua Guatemala. FLAAR Reports.
On this page you can see the front covers of over a dozen ballgame reports by Hellmuth.
Available online: www.maya-archaeology.org/rubber-ballgame-
hunting/pre-columbian-prehispanic-maya-aztec-rubber-ball-games/all-the-
books-on-the-rubber-ballgames-of-prehispanic-mesoamerica-by-nicholas-
hellmuth.php .
So about 2,619 pages by Hellmuth on the ball game of the Maya and their neighbors. Plus 359 more pages on deer hunting and pseudo-God L headdress on deer hunters and ball players. Plus 69 pages on Hunting the Principal Bird Deity (not with ball game clothing or immediate relationship). So, lots of material to assist students for PhD dissertations and lots of material for articles and monographs on ball games of the Maya. We are interested in ball games of Teotihuacan but our focus is Classic Maya in the books listed here.
We are also interested in ball court architecture, obviously especially Classic Maya, but also ball courts in Mixtec and Aztec lianzos and codices.
Iconographic Research on Deer Hunting, God L Headdress and Ballgame Scenes that surprised all of us to document that some ballgames were re-enactments of deer hunts (potentially, one team the hunters, the other team “the hunted”).
- 1996
- Four Peten Style Plates showing Hunters surrounded by their pack of Yapping Dogs. Foundation for Latin American Anthropological Research, Cocoa, Florida (Brevard Community College). 18 numbered pages + unnumbered pages of photos and drawings = 16 unumbered pages of illustrations = 34 pages.
No ballplayers, no balls, no ballcourts but by 1996 I had long ago noticed that many ballplayers wear deer hides and ballplayers also wear the same sombrero as some deer hunters. Plus conch shells were blown by hunters and by musicians standing on the ballcourt steps.
The next FLAAR report has multiple times more hunting scenes, but focused on hunting scenes of Early Classic date.
- 1996
- The Old Deer Hunter and the Woman Riding the Mythical Deer. The Actun Balam Vase, Belize, Tepeu 3 and the Prototype Actun Balam Scene, Peten, Tepeu 1. Report on work-in-progress, National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka, Japan: Project: Image Data Base of Slides of Maya Pottery. Foundation for Latin American Anthropological Research, Cocoa, Florida (Brevard Community College). 18 numbered pages of text + 23 unnumbered line drawings and full-page photographs = 41 pages.
The MINPAKU museum, in a suburb of Osaka, Japan, had provided a Japanese government visiting research professor position for six months in Japan for Hellmuth to teach digital imaging to the museum curators and to initiate descriptions of Maya pottery style and iconography. Since I had been working on the ballgame iconography the previous year (1995), I decided to continue and add hunting iconography. So most of the year 1996 FLAAR reports were written while in Japan. I worked from 8:00 am until early evening (when the museum building closed) and then hiked by foot back to my apartment 45 minutes walking. In the morning I hiked the same 45 minutes because I did not want to be scrunched on a bus and then changing bus lines and waiting for the next bus. Besides, by walking every morning and evening all six months: rain or snow, sun or darkness, I could experience Japanese culture in a way no tourist would ever have a chance to experience. |
- 1996
- Hunting pictured on Early Classic Maya Pottery: cylindrical tripods and basal flange bowls. Foundation for Latin American Anthropological Research, Cocoa, Florida (Brevard Community College).
60 numbered pages + 35 unnumbered pages of photos and drawings = 95 pages.
Third volume on deer hunting scenes in order to document what are “hunting clothing, accessories, etc.”
- 1996
- Headdresses and Skirts shared by Deer Hunters and Ballplayers. Foundation for Latin American Anthropological Research, Cocoa, Florida (Brevard Community College). 86 numbered pages + v pages of frontmatter + 55 unnumbered pages of photos and drawings = 146 pages.
After the three photo essays on deer hunters comes the summary publication to document their relationship with one of the variants of the Classic Maya ballgame, namely, that “some ballgames had players dressed as deer hunters… so was the game a hunt for deer with the “deer” to become a sacrificed ballplayer?” Or was the deer hunt aspect without human sacrifice and just a celebration of a successful deer hunt?
- 1996
- The Pseudo-God L Headdress on Warriors and on Ballplayers. Foundation for Latin American Anthropological Research, Cocoa, Florida (Brevard Community College). 27 numbered pages; no bibliography. 16 illustrations not numbered nor paginated (since this was a handout at a symposium). Total 43 pages.
All the initial illustrations show the Pseudo-God L headdress on warriors (usually but not always a warrior-king). Then shows three ballplayers with the same headdress (between pages 15 and 17).
- 1996
- Hunting the Principal Bird Deity as pictured in Maya Ceramic Art. National Museum of Ethnology (MINPAKU, Japan). 41 numbered pages of text + 28 full pages of illustrations and photographs = 69 pages.
Illustrations and photos are not on numbered pages since we did not know until the last minute what photos and what illustrations were available to pack into the report in Adobe PageMaker (which was the software that I learned in the 1990’s).
This is not specifically on the ballgame, but shows hunters of birds (not deer). But since I was working full-time around the clock on hunting deer, I decided to add this FLAAR report on hunting Seven Macaw (which is normally not a macaw but is the Laughing Falcon, also called Snake Hawk (as I showed in my PhD dissertation).
FLAAR Project to scan and provide as digital PDFs all Hellmuth publications
Our long-range project is to find, scan, correct scanner spelling errors and punctuation errors and make available all of the following works of Hellmuth of the recent half century.
Theses: BA, MA, PhD
- Undergraduate thesis on Tikal Bu. 196, Tomb of the Jade Jaguar is already published in several hand-typed xeroxed editions.
- MA thesis on Late Classic Maya uses of Teotihuacan symbols (Brown University) is being prepared for being downloadable; hopefully available later this year.
- PhD dissertation is so large this will take a while; in the meantime the ADEVA coffee-table book version is ready available around the world as a hard-cover book. Has about 727 illustrations.
Ethnohistory: Chol Lacandon, Cholti Lacandon, Yucatec Lacandon, Quehache, Itza, Ytza
Bibliographies on endless number of subjects.
Ball Games of Mesoamerica: Ballcourts, Ballplayer outfits, Yokes, Hachas. The present page covers these reports.
Iconography, Symbolism, Cosmology: Patolli, 4-petalled flowers, Water Lily (PhD in German and in English)
Iconography: Tiquisate, Teotihuacan-influence, (plus MA thesis)
Botany and Ethnobotany (and iconography of flowers, trees, etc.): Dozens, scores on www.Maya-ethnobotany.org.
Zoology and Ethnozoology (and iconography of fauna). Tons of FLAAR Reports on www.Maya-ethnozoology.org.
Archaeoastronomy, Celestial Symbols, Sky Band Iconography. Lots in preparation.
Archaeology, mapping and other fieldwork: Yaxha, Nakum, Topoxte, Nim Li Punit (stelae, Belize); (Harvard BA thesis already a download)
Architectural History (architectural aspects of archaeology): Santa Rosa Xtampak. We have been working on preparing to release 5 volumes; so many pages it will take a while.
Photography: Reviews of cameras, lighting, tripods, etc. plus “how to do” reports. Dozens of FLAAR Reports on digital camera equipment reviews on www.digital-photography.org
Appendix A
Library DataBases
You can find even more if you search deeper into library databases. Here is one link to get you started. Each library has its own database. Obviously select a library of a university that has capable and productive Mayanists (these libraries have the most books)
Harvard, Yale, Brown (because Stephen Houston and others are there now), University of Texas at Austin (lots of very capable Mayanists here), University of Texas at San Antonio (Prof. Jacinto Quirarte was here for decades so their library has probably the most of Hellmuth’s hand-typed and xeroxed FLAAR reports because Dr Quirarte helped with modest funding for photography over many years). MARI/Tulane plus university libraries in UK and EU. The databases from each of these, one-by-one, should get you 90% of what you need. MesoWeb (PARI, Precolumbian Art Research Institute), FAMSI, and lots of museums have helpful databases.
First posted August 2022 based on notes from 2018, 2019
This year 2022 page is totally updated, rewritten and expanded with additional information from the web page: All the books on the rubber ballgames of prehispanic Mesoamerica by Nicholas Hellmuth, Front covers of a dozen monographs on rubber ballgames of Mesoamerica which dates from February 2018.
