Pre-Columbian Art

 

It's almost 3pm and I'm still in bed with the worst cramps I've had in months.  They didn't bother me too much earlier in my trip, but today they really hurt.  I can't stand up straight and I can't button my pants (and due to losing a few pounds recently, my pants normally have plenty of room).  Sigh...  I'm usually OK by dinnertime, though.

So now's a good time to write about a couple things I learned at the Museum of Pre-Columbian Art.  First, remember learning in school that no on in the Americas had invented the wheel before the europeans arrived?  Except for wheels they hung on walls and used as calendars?  Well, OK, maybe you don't remember that, but it's one of the few things that I remember.  Well imagine my surprise when I saw this in the museum:

It's a child's toy, about 6 inches high, and it is definitely on wheels, with axels! 

I did some research online and it turns out there are a whole bunch of toys like this one.  But for whatever reason, the people who made these toys never made any larger versions to be used as carts.  I always figured they'd never discovered the basic mechanism of the wheel at all.

The other thing I learned about at the museum was this game the pre-Colombians used to play called juego de pelota or Mesoamerican ball game.  It started around 1,000 B.C. and was played all over Central America.  The museum didn't have any artifacts, but this wall plaque explained the game and ended with "Two teams faced each other until the losing side died by decapitation."  (emphasis mine.)  Elsewhere, the museum had this drawing:

So, yeah.  What people know about the game is kind of vague but apparently this game was part of some sacrificial ritual (at least sometimes, other times it was just a game).  It's still played today, although I don't think there are any more decapitations.

Well, it's more than an hour after I started writing this post (I got distracted by the internet a bit) and I'm feeling better.  :)  It's probably too late to sight-see, but it's not too late to find myself a nice dinner.