Ball Court Temple Complex

17.0167°N, 96.5167°W.

The Ball Court Temple Complex at Dainzú in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico, is an early Zapotec ceremonial precinct built between approximately 750 BCE and 350 CE, contemporaneous with the early phases of nearby Monte Albán. The complex centres on a stepped pyramidal platform faced with low-relief carved stone slabs depicting ballplayers in characteristic protective gear — leather helmets, gloves, and waist-yokes — engaged in the Mesoamerican ballgame. More than fifty such reliefs survive on the lower terrace, among the earliest depictions of the ballgame in Mesoamerica. The adjacent ball court is one of the smallest known I-shaped courts in the region. The site was excavated by Ignacio Bernal for INAH between 1965 and 1969, and the carved relief slabs were consolidated in place. Several of the depicted ballplayers wear elaborate jaguar-mask helmets, anticipating the iconography that would dominate later Mesoamerican ballgame art.

The Ball Court Temple is a pyramid whose lower wall is carved with fifty portraits of athletes mid-play in a game that would still be played a thousand years later.