Archaeologists at the University of Cincinnati have discovered evidence of a fascinating ritual performed by the ancient Maya during the construction of a ballcourt in the city of Yaxnohcah, Mexico. Using environmental DNA analysis, researchers identified a collection of plants with religious associations and medicinal properties beneath the ballcourt’s plaza floor, suggesting a ceremonial offering to appease the gods and seek their protection.

Ancient Maya Ballcourt Reveals Ceremonial Offerings Of Hallucinogenic And Medicinal Plants

April 28, 2024 University of Cincinnati

Science Blog

5 days ago

Ancient Maya Ballcourt Reveals Ceremonial Offerings of Hallucinogenic and Medicinal Plants - ScienceBlog.com

Ensouling Ritual: Seeking the Gods’ Blessing
“When they erected a new building, they asked the goodwill of the gods to protect the people inhabiting it,” UC Professor David Lentz said. “Some people call it an ensouling ritual, to get a blessing from and appease the gods.”
The research team, working through Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History, excavated a small area of the ballcourt from 2016 to 2022. The ancient Maya played several ball games, including pok-a-tok, which has rules similar to soccer and basketball, with players attempting to get a ball through a ring or hoop on a wall.

Perishable Materials Preserved through eDNA
While ancient plant remains rarely survive in tropical climates due to rapid decomposition, the use of environmental DNA allowed researchers to identify several types of plants known for their ritual significance. The discovery included a morning glory called xtabentun, known for its hallucinogenic properties, as well as lancewood, chili peppers, and jool, the leaves of which were used to wrap ceremonial offerings.
“I think the fact that these four plants which have a known cultural importance to the Maya were found in a concentrated sample tells us it was an intentional and purposeful collection under this platform,” said UC Associate Professor Eric Tepe, a botanist who has studied modern plants in the same forests once traveled by the ancient Maya.
The findings contribute to the growing understanding of the sophisticated Maya culture, which is believed to have developed water filtration systems and employed conservation-minded forestry practices. However, the ancient Maya also struggled against years-long droughts and are thought to have deforested vast tracts for agriculture.
“We see the yin and yang of human existence in the ancient Maya,” Lentz said. “To me that’s why they’re so fascinating.”

The study, a collaboration between researchers from the University of Calgary, the Autonomous University of Campeche, and the National Autonomous University of Mexico, was published in the journal PLOS ONE.

Keyword phrase: Ancient Maya ballcourt ceremonial plant offerings

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

AN ANCIENT SPORTS RITUAL —

Maya used hallucinogenic plants in rituals to bless their ball courts

eDNA analysis found traces of xtabentum, as well as lancewood, chili peppers, and jool.

JENNIFER OUELLETTE - 5/2/2024, 8:30 AM

Enlarge / A decorative ring made from carved stone is embedded in the wall of a ballcourt in the ancient Maya city of Chichen Itza.
Kåre Thor Olsen/CC BY-SA 3.0 69

It's well-known that the ancient Maya had their own version of ball games, which were played with a rubber ball on stone courts. Such games served not just as athletic events but also religious ones that often involved ritual sacrifices. Archaeologists have now found evidence that the Maya may have blessed newly constructed ball courts in rituals involving plants with hallucinogenic properties, according to a new paper published in the journal PLoS ONE.

“When they erected a new building, they asked the goodwill of the gods to protect the people inhabiting it,” said co-author David Lentz of the University of Cincinnati. “Some people call it an ensouling ritual, to get a blessing from and appease the gods.” Lentz and his team previously used genetic and pollen analyses of the wild and cultivated plants found in the ancient Maya city Yaxnohcah in what is now Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, revealing evidence of sustainable agriculture and forestry spanning a millennia.

As we've reported previously, there is ample evidence that humans in many cultures throughout history used various hallucinogenic substances in religious ceremonies or shamanic rituals. That includes not just ancient Egypt but also ancient Greek, Vedic, Maya, Inca, and Aztec cultures. The Urarina people who live in the Peruvian Amazon Basin still use a psychoactive brew called ayahuasca in their rituals, and Westerners seeking their own brand of enlightenment have also been known to participate.

FURTHER READINGAncient Egyptian followers of a deity called Bes may have used hallucinogens

Last year, archaeologists found that an ancient Egyptian vase in the shape of the deity Bes showed traces of chemical plant compounds known to produce hallucinations. Specifically, they identified Syrian rue (Peganum harmala), whose seeds are known to have hallucinogenic properties that can induce dream-like visions, per the authors, thanks to its production of the alkaloids harmine and harmaline. There were also traces of blue water-lily (Nymphaea cerulea), which contains a psychoactive alkaloid that acts as a sedative; it's one of several candidate plants that scholars believe might be the fruit of the lotus tree described in Homer's Odyssey. Members of the cult of Bes may have consumed a special cocktail containing the compounds to induce altered states of consciousness.

And in 2022, archaeologists uncovered evidence that an ancient Peruvian people laced the beer served at their feasts with hallucinogens. Excavations at a remote Wari outpost called Quilcapampa unearthed seeds from the vilca tree that can be used to produce a potent hallucinogenic drug. The seeds, bark, and other parts of the tree all contain DMT, a well-known psychedelic substance that is also found in the ayahuasca brews of Amazonian tribes. However, the primary active ingredient is bufotenine. There is also evidence from historical accounts that a juice or tea derived from vilca seeds was sometimes added to chicha, a fermented beverage made from maize or the fruits of the molle tree native to Peru.

The people of the neighboring state of Tiwanaku were known to mix such hallucinogens with alcohol, specifically maize beer. However, the Wari likely used these substances to help forge political alliances and expand their empire. It's possible the Wari held one big final blowout before the site was abandoned. The Wari empire lasted from around 500 CE to 1100 CE in the central highlands of Peru.

FURTHER READING: Ancient Peruvians partied hard, spiked their beer with hallucinogens to win friends

This latest study stems from soil samples taken during excavations from 2016 to 2022 at Yaxnocah, nine or so miles north of the Guatemalan border—specifically from a stone and earthen ball court platform linked by a causeway to a nearby ceremonial complex. Some 300 such ball courts have been found in the highlands of Guatemala and Chiapas, most dating to the post-classic period.

Enlarge / David Lentz and Nicholas Dunning gather samples at the ancient Maya city of Yaxnohcah.
David Lentz

Much of what we know about these games comes from Maya murals, carvings, and other decorative artifacts. One game, known as pok-a-tok, had rules similar to soccer or basketball, with the goal of trying to get the ball through a carved stone ring or hoop mounted on a wall.

But with Maya ball games, there were also ritual human sacrifices by decapitation or disembowelment—possibly of the winning team's captain. The courts themselves were typically I-shaped, with a long middle field and parallel ends, as well as raised platforms on either side for spectators. Painted murals surrounded the ball courts, and arenas were typically decorated movable stone markers (hacha).

The Yaxnocah ball court platform had originally supported several Middle Preclassic (1000–400 BCE) domestic structures, per the authors, later remodeled to add the ball court sometime between 400 BCE and 200 CE.

In such cases, a blessing ritual would be performed that often involved offerings of ceramics or jewelry, according to co-author Nicholas Dunning.
“We have known for years from ethnohistorical sources that the Maya also used perishable materials in these offerings, but it is almost impossible to find them archaeologically, which is what makes this discovery using environmental DNA (eDNA) so extraordinary,” he said.

The primary difficulty is that tropical climates mean that plants decompose so quickly that no traces of them remain millennia later. There have been some exceptions, such as at a site in El Salvador where a volcanic eruption covered a Maya village with ash, or cave sites where plant remains were preserved in ceramic vessels. The use of eDNA technology can augment the traditional paleobotanical toolkit, per the authors, having previously used the method to analyze samples taken from both Yaxnohcah and the Maya city of Tikal.

The use of eDNA technology can augment the traditional paleobotanical tooria or fungi, but 15 were from plants, four of which the team was able to identity at the genus or species level.

The four plant types, identified by their fragmented DNA in the samples, include

a vine in the morning glory family (Ipomoea corymbosa),
chili peppers,
a tree known as jool (Hampea trilobata) and
the lancewood plant (Oxandra lanceolata).

Each of those four "has special properties that would have made them a likely component of an ancient ritual," the authors wrote.
"Together, they form an intriguing set of medicinal and ceremonial plants whose combination elicits questions about symbolic meaning and religious associations."

Enlarge / David Lentz holds up a sculpture that bears reproductions of ancient Maya glyphs.
Andrew Hagley

The most intriguing was a type of morning glory vine called xtabentum;

today, the Maya brew mead from honey made by bees that feed on pollen from xtabentum flowers.
The Aztecs called it coaxihuitl ("snake plant") and the seeds are known to contain alkaloids with d-lysergic acid amide and d-lysergic acid methylcarbinolamide—compounds with a similar structure to LSD and alkaloids present in ergot fungi.
The Aztecs used these hallucinogenic seeds in divination ceremonies meant to communicate with their gods.

How the ancient Maya may have used xtabentum in their rituals is more vague, but Lentz et al. have found evidence in the ethnographic literature, such as the Dresden Codex, that their usage was similar to that of the Aztecs.

The analysis also revealed traces of chili peppers in the nightshade family, a common condiment or flavoring among the Maya and many other Old World cultures.

Modern Maya use chili pepper seeds as treatments for a variety of conditions and for certain religious ceremonies.

Traces of jool, a small tree with medicinal properties, indicates that the xtabentum and other plants may have been wrapped in bark and leaves, a common practice for ceremonial food bundles.

Finally, there were traces of lancewood (chilcahuite), a tree whose wood is used to make spears and archery bows, as well as having medicinal properties.

"The Maya are known to place healing bundles below floors as a protective measure to ward off external causes of illness," the authors concluded.

"An even stronger possibility, however, was that this was part of an ensouling or fixed earth ritual... Finally, this assemblage of plants may have been part of a divination ritual... Whatever the intent of the Maya petitioners, it seems clear that some kind of divination or healing ritual took place at the base of the ball court during the Late Preclassic period."

DOI: PLoS ONE, 2024. 10.1371/journal.pone.0301497 (About DOIs).

READER COMMENTS 69