The national anthropology institute said that while Villagers were installing a water pipe in southwestern Mexico went unsteady onto an ancient granite statue portraying a player from a pre-Hispanic ball game.

The National Anthropology and History Institute was known to have disclosed in a statement that the stone had been sliced at the neck, similar to a beheaded, as well as buried in a ritual that was common at the time.

Arousing with immense interest and mystery, there are indications that the 1.65-meter (5-foot-4) tall statue, which portrays a bow-legged ballplayer with his arms crossed, was built onto an I-shaped ball game field before it was buried at the same time it could belong to a period which is more than 1,000 years old.

Mesoamerican culture

Mesoamericans would paint objects in red and ‘kill’ them by breaking them as offerings for rituals at the end of calendar cycles. While the monument was discovered in the pre-Hispanic site of Piedra Labrada, which includes five ancient ball fields in which teams battled to put a rubber ball through a circular stone by bouncing it on their hips. The statue may have been carved by the Mixtec indigenous group around the year 600.

Archeologist were known to have began to make an excavation in the Piedra Labrada site more than a year ago and since then have found 50 medium-sized buildings of up to five meters in height as well as around 20 sculptures ranging from snake heads to snails and humans with animal features.

Piedra Labrada

Towards the concluding stage, the national anthropology institute said that the ball game fields along with temples as well public squares showcase Piedra Labrada being a city with an important ritualistic role.

Now, finally the matter of fact remain that any truth that is unknowable except by divine revelation like this one arouses genuine intense thrill for the researchers and for the present society. 

That's why it's said that history is always a mystery, until it gets revealed!
 
Content source:Khaleej Times
Image source: Mesoamerican culture and Piedra Labrada

(AW:Samrat Biswas)