I really wish ancient sports would make a comeback. I would give an arm and leg to spectate at an ancient sports demo event. Sort of Renaissance fair meets Olympics vibe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKvQjgC9sIY
But as said in another comment, it's just an interpretation, it's really hard to tell if it's anything like the original intent of the sport/ritual.
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Here's an optimistic video about a different modern approach to what is known of the game:
I’ve toyed with the idea of plotting the era and location of popular TV and movie narratives. I think you’d find that most of them are very narrowly focused on a handful of places and times. This may not be a recipe for successful TV, but I would love to watch a TV show about the Maya or the Olmec or the Inca (or really any of the pre-Colombian indigenous people of the Americas). Like all people, I’m sure that these people had dramatic lives, but it would be all the more interesting because it would be a totally different culture. When you think about what modern civilization has inherited from these people—-agriculture especially—-it’s a shame that we don’t know more about them.
It has been filmed in slow motion in this beautiful video.
I have a feeling it would be tough to weigh where to keep things to 100% to what we know vs. filling in the blanks to make it more entertaining. Seems to have been going on during the olmec period too which would indicate at least around 3000 years of play... lots of different variations over that time. Tough to decide which one to pick.
This is what makes me very sad, for those trying to recover their culture.
For example, there are many Native Canadians trying to recover their culture and language, their history. And I wish them all success!
But at the same time, I often see such discussions talking as if that culture was static. Unchangeable. "This is how we did it", from elders, which barely remember anything other than the fading memories of ther great grandparents.
Instead, I hope that such culture can be brought back, but with an understanding of "what if such culture was not wiped out, but instead, stayed alive and existed through change to modern times".
An example would be food, and dance, and music, and stories. All of these would transition to modern mediums, and tools, and yet, still stem from the past, while simultaneously being influenced by the widening world, and expanded trade, and so on.
I think the greatest loss is not the way things were, past culture, because everyone loses that, humans always change, regardless of technology.
Instead, the greatest loss is what could have been today.
And I would love to see what could have been.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_Ballgame
> The usual dress for players is known from iconographic and figural findings. These show leather protection mainly at the hips and the chest, but sometimes also at the knees and the arms, though very seldom at the feet. The clothing was used to protect against the impact of the ball. The protected parts of the body were used to strike the ball. Some players would wear head dresses (like deer heads) for ritual reasons.