Archaeologists in Mexico have discovered a “rare” 1,200-year-old tablet they believe to be a scoreboard for an ancient Mayan ball game.
Discovered in the Chichen Itza site on the Yucatan peninsula, the stone tablet shows two men dressed in ornate headgear playing the ancient game of pelota, a game played by Mayas for hundreds of years.
Around the outside of the pair is a series of hieroglyphic writing which experts believe could have been a scoreboard for the game, which was was a traditional practice of Mesoamerican peoples and is believed to have had ritual undertones.
Researchers from Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History are now preparing to take high-resolution images of the text and iconography for detailed study, while preparing it for conservation.
It is rare to find hieroglyphic writing at this Mayan site, and even rarer to find a complete text.
“This hasn’t happened in 11 years," archaeologist Francisco Pérez Ruiz explained.
Archaeologist Lizbeth Beatriz Mendicut Perez found the 40-kg stone at the Casa Colorada (Red House) compound on the site.
The stone was discovered face down and half a metre underground and is believed to have fallen when an archway collapsed.
Experts believe it may have been installed in the archway between the late 800s and the turn of the 10th century.
The building is one of the best preserved in the city of Chichen Itza.
