id: 147519 accession number: 1973.3 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1973.3 updated: 2020-07-09 09:01:21.481000 Ballgame Palma, c. 900-1100. Mexico, Gulf Coast, Classic Veracruz style (600-1100). Stone; overall: 49.2 x 23.5 x 11.4 cm (19 3/8 x 9 1/4 x 4 1/2 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 1973.3 title: Ballgame Palma title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: c. 900-1100 creation date earliest: 900 creation date latest: 1100 current location: 233 Mesoamerican and Intermediate Region creditline: Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund copyright: --- culture: Mexico, Gulf Coast, Classic Veracruz style (600-1100) technique: stone department: Art of the Americas collection: AA - Mesoamerica type: Sculpture find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS --- measurements: Overall: 49.2 x 23.5 x 11.4 cm (19 3/8 x 9 1/4 x 4 1/2 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: Year in Review: 1973 opening date: 1974-01-30T05:00:00 Year in Review: 1973. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (January 30-March 17, 1974). title: The Sport of Life and Death: The Mesoamerican Ballgame opening date: 2001-09-24T00:00:00 The Sport of Life and Death: The Mesoamerican Ballgame. Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC (September 24-December 30, 2001); New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA (February 16-April 28, 2002); Newark Museum, Newark, NJ (October 1-December 29, 2002). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS * Tresors Du Nouveau Monde, Musess Royaux d' Art et d' Histoire, Brussels, Belgium (September 15- December 27, 1992). --- PROVENANCE Update on pre-acquisition history pending. date: footnotes: citations: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH date: 1973- footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: The Mesoamerican ballgame was played with a hard rubber ball that players bounced off their hips. digital description: wall description: 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. --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS Spinden, Ellen S. " The Place of Tajin in Totonac Archaeology." American Anthropologist. vol, 35, no. 2 (1933). page number: pp. 224-270 url: 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. page number: pp. 34-36, 72 url: Ekholm, Gordon. " Is American Indian Culture Asiatic?" Natural History (1950). page number: pp. 344-51, 382 url: Proskouriakoff, Tatiana. " Classic Central Veracruz Sculpture." Contributions to American Archaeology and History. 11 (1954). page number: pp. 63-90 url: Covarrubias, Miguel. Indian Art of Mexico and Central America. New York: Knopf, 1957. page number: pl. XZII url: Willey, Gordon R. An Introduction to American Archaeology... 2, 2. New Jersey: Prencice-Hall, 1966. page number: p. 143 url: " Recent Accessions of American and Canadian Museums." The Art Quarterly Vol. XXXVI, no. 4 (Winter, 1973). page number: p. 427 & 437 url: "The Year in Review for 1973." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 61, no. 2 (1974). page number: pp. 73 & 80, no. 28 url: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25152513 Hawley, Henry. "Classic Veracruz Sculptures." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 61, no. 10 (1974). page number: pp. 321-330 url: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25152555 The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. page number: Reproduced: p. 394 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1978/page/n414 Kubler, George. The Art and Architecture of Ancient America: The Mexican, Maya, and Andean Peoples. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1984. page number: pl. 40b url: Leyenaar, Ted J. J., and Lee Allen Parsons. Ulama, Het Balspel Bij De Maya's En Azteken, 2000 V. Chr.-2000 N. Chr.: Van Mensenoffer Tot Sport = Ulama, the Ballgame of the Mayas and Aztecs, 2000 BC-AD 2000 : from Human Sacrifice to Sport. Leiden: SMD Informatief, 1988. page number: p. 61 & 175, pl. 2, fig. 71 url: Deletaille, Emile, and Lin Deletaille. Trésors du nouveau monde. Bruxelles: Musées royaux d'art et d'histoire, 1992. page number: fig. 99 a, b url: Solis, Felipe. " La Costa del Golfo: El Arte del Centro de Veracruz y del Mundo Huasteco." Mexico en el Mundo de las Colecciones de Arte. Mesoamerica 1 (1994.) page number: pp. 196-7 url: Whittington, E. Michael. The Sport of Life and Death: The Mesoamerican Ballgame. London: Thames & Hudson, 2001. page number: p. 259, no. 130 url: Cleveland Museum of Art, David Franklin, and C. Griffith Mann. Treasures from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2012. page number: pp. 78-9 url: Mexican Art Abroad Series. (Mexico: Grupo Azabache, 1994) page number: url: --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1973.3/1973.3_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1973.3/1973.3_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1973.3/1973.3_full.tif