When speaking of a cultural legacy of our ancestors, undoubtedly a broad compendium of patrimonies or elements that define us with respect to the rest of humanity is included.

Heritage as a cultural manifestation is stipulated by valuation principles derived from romantic movements of the nineteenth century. The Cultural Heritage of Humanity, for UNESCO, is a category that includes various monuments, groups and places with exceptional features from the point of view of art, science and history. This organization has classified and / or cataloged as built cultural heritage of humanity to all those elements that have a certain relevance or as the legacy of an entire ancestral people. Constituted thus in an authority that not only registers the patrimonial arching but that it regulates and legitimates the incorporation (or not) of a monument.

This legacy that we call heritage is the testimony of the way of life, of a belief system, of a literature, of a vision of the world that allows us to identify ourselves individually and collectively. It is the historical memory in which we recognize ourselves.

Today the legacy of the pre-Columbian peoples is recognized by UNESCO as an important part of the history and culture of Latin Americans and the Caribbean. Consequently, the aesthetic, symbolic and social value of the prehispanic peoples has begun to emerge from the oblivion to which for a long time it had been relegated.

Among these peoples is the Mayan civilization, which bequeathed to us a series of monuments that constitute in themselves a historical and collective memory that remain to this day. But among its constructions, there is one in particular that has managed to capture the cosmogony of all that Mesoamerican people: the field of the ball.

The game of the ball, known as Pok-ta-po and pa-hom, is manifested as a symbolic representation of that civilization, as well as of many others. In each city there was a ball field that was usually located between the Acropolis and the public square, as in Tikal, Chichén-Itzá, Xochicalco. This shows the ritual and social nature of this space.

In this game there are certain aspects that conjugate the mythical-religious as, for example, the ball, which sometimes represents the sun as well as the cyclical aspect of life. We appreciate how an object of daily life is resized under the Maya perspective and gives us references about the symbolic capital of our ancestors. But, as some researchers suggest, this game could represent an allegory of the Maya State.

One of the "courts" that remain without many changes is located in Copan (Honduras), one of the most important Mayan centers. It is necessary to point out, as mentioned above, that the Copan ball game, as a cultural manifestation, is part of what is now recognized as an intangible cultural heritage.

Copán

The city of Copán is located in Honduras, on the outskirts of the Maya Lowlands (currently this territory is shared by the countries of Guatemala, Mexico, El Salvador, Belize and Honduras). Scholars fix the human occupation for more than two millennia, which goes from the Early Preclassic to the Postclassic (which comprises from the fifth to the ninth centuries). Upon the arrival of the Spaniards Copán still maintained traces of the great city that it came to be. Many chroniclers affirm the greatness of this city, as well as other places in Mesoamerica.

In a letter written by Diego García de Palacio, Oidor of the Audiencia of Guatemala, King Felipe II in 1576 reports that:

Near the said place as they go to the city of San Pedro [Sula], in the first place of the province of Honduras, which is called Copán, there are ruins and vestiges of great population and of magnificent buildings, and such that it seems that in no time could have, in such a barbarous wit as the natives of that province have, a building of so much art and sumptuousness; It is the shore of a beautiful river, and in well placed and extended fields, land of medium tempera, fed up with fertility, and of much hunting and fishing.
In the said ruins, there are mountains that seem to have been made by hands, and in them, many things to notice. Before reaching them, there is a sign of thick walls and a very large stone in the form of an eagle, and in its chest a long frame of a stick, and in it certain letters that are not known to be. (Cabezas Carcache,2012).

Source

His description of the city shows the majesty of the Mayan architectural work. The combination of this built heritage and the relationship with nature is a proof of the firm communion that maintained this culture with the environment, which they considered as a mother and with which they lived in harmony.

The city of Copan, one of the largest, is divided into two sections: the first, known as the Main Group, includes several open squares that are surrounded by large buildings giving it some solidity and architectural beauty. This group in turn is divided into two sections, the Plazas Bajas del Norte and the Acropolis del Sur, in addition there is an elevated area that has been reconstructed by its different rulers over the centuries, finding varied architectural forms.

Source

In the Great Plaza, as it was known, there was a series of carved altars and stelae that were ordained in the reign of the thirteenth ruler of Copán. Nearby there is one of the monuments that shows the skill and architectural majesty of which García de Palacio speaks in his letter: the Hieroglyphic Stairway, a carved codex with more than 2,000 glyphs that have not yet been decoded in their entirety. Right there is the Ball Field, a place that we will detail in depth in later lines, this field was used to perform funerary rituals, playful tributes to kings, arrival of the harvest, sacrifice to the gods, betrothal, others. (Viel and Hall, 2002).

The Acropolis was between two main courtyards: Western Courtyard and Eastern Courtyard. In the first one, during an archaeological excavation of tunnels, a temple called Rosalila was found in good condition. In Altar Q there is a list of Copán kings and links the sixteenth of them as the founder. In the second, also known as Plaza de los Jaguares, there are a series of buildings that the fourteenth king used as a meeting place with representatives of the population. In addition, other settlements that belonged to the elite of the city have been found. (Viel and hall, 2002).

Copán will reach its greatest splendor with the Copanec king 18 Rabbit between 711 and 736 AD, this period is known as the golden years of civilization. Around this time, the most beautiful stelae were built, which also added symbolic value to the entire construction. The skill and beauty in the carving of rock have led specialists to affirm that the monuments found in Copan are a sample of the mastery and development that the Maya would have achieved in sculptural art.

This city has been considered by UNESCO in 1980 as World Cultural Heritage, for "being an outstanding example of a type of building, set or landscape that illustrates (a) significant stage (s) in human architectural or technological history; and for being directly or tangibly associated with living events or traditions, with ideas, or with beliefs, with artistic and literary works of exceptional universal significance ".UNESCO.

Source

Bibliographic references

Alvarado Tezozómoc, Fernando (s / f). Crónica Mexicáyotl. National Autonomous University of Mexico. Retrieved from: http://www.tlamachtia.mexicayotl.mx/panel/documentos/cargas/CRONICA.pdf

Anonymous. Popol Vuh in Maya Literature (s / f). Ayacucho Library: Caracas. Retrieved from: http://www.bibliotecayacucho.gob.ve/fba/index.php?id=97&backPID=103&begin_at=48&tt_products=57

Cabezas Carcache, Horacio (2012). Copán, Athens of the new world. In Horacio Cabezas Carcache (Ed.) Mesoamerican Cities. Mesoamerican Publications: Guatemala. Retrieved from: http://www.umes.edu.gt/libros/CIUDADESMESOAMERICANAS.pdf

Canute A. Marcello, Ellen E. Bell and Cassandra R. Bill (2007). From the limit of the kingdom of Copan: Modeling the socio-political integration of the Classic Maya. In XX Archaeological Research Symposium in Guatemala, 2006 (edited by J.P. Laporte, B. Arroyo and H. Mejía), pp. 904-920. National Museum of Archeology and Ethnology, Guatemala. Retrieved from: http://www.asociaciontikal.com/pdf/53_-_Canuto,_Bell_y_Bill.pdf

Guatemalan youth launch videogame (May 29, 2013). Government of Guatemala, Ministry of Culture and Sports. Recovered from:
http://mcd.gob.gt/jovenes-guatemaltecos-lanzan-videojuego/

Morales Hidalgo, Yesmín. (2013, October 25). Historical evolution of the definition of Built Heritage Message on Blog. Retrieved from: http://patrimonioedificado2013.blogspot.com/2013_10_25_archive.html

Ramírez Torrealba, Elvis and Rosa López (2005). A look at the Mayan ball game as a magical religious myth. In Efdeportes Revista Digital, Buenos Aires, Year 10, No. 85, June 2005. Retrieved from: http://www.efdeportes.com/efd85/maya.htm

Ocampo Hurtado, Juan (2012). The pre-Hispanic ball game and the Olympic Games. Magazine U.D.C.A. Act. & Div. Cient. 15 (Olympian Supply): 17-25, 2012. Retrieved from: http://www.udca.edu.co/attachments/article/1736/juego-pelota-prehispanico-juegos-olimpicos.pdf

Viel, René and Jay Hall (2002). The natural and cultural landscape of the Copan Valley. In XV Archaeological Research Symposium in Guatemala, 2001 (edited by J.P. Laporte, H. Escobedo and B. Arroyo), pp.872-877. National Museum of Archeology and Ethnology, Guatemala. Retrieved from http://www.asociaciontikal.com/pdf/78.01%20-%20Viel%20-%20en%20PDF.pdf

UNESCO (2013). The Criteria for Selection. Retrieved from: http://whc.unesco.org/en/criteria/ Consultation: 2013, October 25

María Cristina Pineda de Carías, Vito Véliz and Ricardo Agurcia Fasquelle, in Yaskin Volume XXI, p. 16