The recent finding of 2 sculptures with the shape of a serpent’s head that 1,500 years ago were part of the Ballgame at the Maya city of Tonina, Chiapas today, were found by archaeologists of the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH). This discovery allows the consolidation of the hypotheses of how this ritual place looked like in the Prehispanic age; due to its architectural position it is the one that resembles more the one described in Popol Vuh, the sacred book of the Mayas.

The recent finding of the 2 sculptures adds up to four other similar that have appeared in different moments since 1992, all of them in Palacio del Inframundo (Underworld Palace), at the Acropolis of Tonina. Both monuments, manufactured with limestone and 80 centimeters long, present a Teotihuacan style.

Archaeologist Juan Yadeun Angulo, responsible for the Tonina Archaeological Project, informed that the finding allowed reinforcing hypotheses regarding the form that the ritual court had.

“With this discovery, the Tonina Ballgame court, 70 meters long, becomes the only example in Mexico of how these ritual spaces were in the Classic period (200-900 AD), whose scoreboards were animal-shaped monuments”. ...