Archaeologists have uncovered the remains of a unique mosaic-style board game at the ancient Maya city of Naachtun in Guatemala, shedding new light on gaming practices in the pre-Columbian Americas.
The game, known as Patolli, is one of the oldest strategy board games of the region, played by the Aztecs and earlier Mesoamerican cultures. It typically involved gambling and used a cross-shaped track of 52 spaces, with patol beans thrown as dice. However, the exact rules followed by the Maya had remained unclear.
Excavations at Naachtun, a former regional capital in northern Petén, revealed a board carved into the ground and made from small red mosaic tiles, likely recycled from broken ceramic vessels. Parts of the tiles have been dated to the fourth century AD.
Although some sections were destroyed, researchers estimate the board originally measured nearly 78cm by 110cm, containing 45 squares made from 478 tile fragments. This mosaic construction is unprecedented in the ancient world, according to the study published in the journal Latin American Antiquity.
The researchers noted that floor mosaics are exceptionally rare in Maya architecture, and no clear example exists in the Western Hemisphere before the colonial period. They suggest the mosaic indicates the board was intended to be a permanent feature, possibly included in the architectural design from the outset, and would have had a longer use life than painted or etched boards.
