Ballgame Palma (c. 900–1100): Art, History and Details

Ballgame Palma (c. 900–1100) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Stone palmas—so-called today for their palm frond-like shape—are ceremonial sculptures that may replicate lightweight gear worn over the chest during the ballgame. The scene on the back of this palma vividly illustrates the tie between the ballgame and sacrifice. A bat descends from the top, clutching severed human body parts, and at the center an upright figure brandishes a blade over a reclining victim. The scene's many animal figures, including the one on the front, may belong to ballgame mythology that now is lost.

Object facts

• Title: Ballgame Palma
• Date: c. 900–1100
• Culture: Mexico, Gulf Coast, Classic Veracruz style (600-1100)
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: stone
• Dimensions: Overall: 49.2 x 23.5 x 11.4 cm (19 3/8 x 9 1/4 x 4 1/2 in.)
• Collection: AA - Mesoamerica
• Department: Art of the Americas
• Accession number: 1973.3

A detail from the museum

The Mesoamerican ballgame was played with a hard rubber ball that players bounced off their hips.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Spinden, Ellen S. " The Place of Tajin in Totonac Archaeology." American Anthropologist. vol, 35, no. 2 (1933).
• Palacios, Enrique Juan. Arqueología de Mexico: culturas araica y tolteca (ilustraciones novadosas en parte precedentes de piezas de la colección del autor). Mexico: Imprenta Mundial, 1937.
• Ekholm, Gordon. " Is American Indian Culture Asiatic?" Natural History (1950).

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.