What sport did the Maya play in their stone courts?

What sport did the Maya play in their stone courts? They played the Mesoamerican ballgame, a family of related games played across Mesoamerica for thousands of years. Maya ballcourts were substantial masonry structures, usually long, narrow alleys bordered by sloping or vertical stone walls.

In the best-known version, players struck a heavy solid-rubber ball with their hips, although other regional versions used forearms, rackets, bats, or handstones. The game was both athletic and ritual. Maya art and texts connect ballcourts with political ceremony, warfare, sacrifice, and the Hero Twins story in the K'iche' Maya Popol Vuh, where the ballcourt is linked symbolically with the underworld.

The alternatives are easy to confuse. Tlachtli is a Nahuatl term associated with the ballgame, while ulama is a surviving modern descendant played in parts of Mexico. Pok-ta-pok is a popular modern label often used for Maya-style ballgame demonstrations, but “Mesoamerican ballgame” is the broad historical name for the sport and the fairest canonical answer.