Archaeologists have uncovered the remains of a unique mosaic-style board game in the Mayan city of Naachtun, Guatemala, offering fresh insights into gaming practices in the ancient world.
Patolli is one of the oldest ludo-like strategy board games played in the Americas by the Aztecs and the earlier Mesoamerican cultures, typically involving an element of gambling.
It comprises a cross-shaped track of 52 spaces, drawn on cloth or even the ground, while patol beans marked with a dot on one side are thrown to function like dice.
But exactly how the game was played in ancient Mayan societies remained unclear.
Recent excavations at Naachtun in northern Petén, once a Maya regional capital, offer clues about how people played the game, and its parallels to other sports in the region.
Researchers unearthed a board carved on the ground, made of small red mosaic tiles likely collected from broken ceramic vessels, parts of which they dated to the fourth century AD.
Since some sections of the board were destroyed, the overall structure could only be estimated.
Archaeologists estimated the board was originally almost 78cm wide and 110cm long, with 45 squares made using 478 tile sections. The mosaic tile sections make the board one of its kind in the ancient world, researchers say.
They suspect the use of mosaic indicates the board “must have been included in the architectural design from the moment of construction”.
“Floor mosaics are exceptionally rare in Maya architecture,” researchers noted in a new study published in the journal Latin American Antiquity.
“While there are countless examples of portable artefacts fabricated or decorated with the mosaic technique, in shell, iron-ore, jade, or turquoise,” they said, “to the best of our knowledge, no clear example of a floor mosaic exists in this part of the Western Hemisphere before the colonial period.”
Its construction technique offers a fresh perspective into how this board game was played by the Maya, researchers say, adding that the use of mosaic hints at a “longer use life” than etched or painted boards.
The board may likely have been included in the design of some spaces in the city from the beginning, they suspect.
