
Acoustics Were Deliberately Designed Into Ancient Arenas Studies of Mayan venues suggest the importance of sports sound By Dan Daley, Audio Editor
Tuesday, February 7, 2023 - 11:10 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
The ancient Mayans loved their sports, even if losing players and coaches might have had to forfeit their heads instead of just the lease on a Range Rover Defender. However, it turns out that they also liked their sports venues to sound good.
Recent airborne lidar imaging of a Mayan settlement, straddling modern Mexico and Guatemala and mostly built between 1000 BCE and 150 CE, revealed the presence of previously unknown canals, dams, terraces, temples, and ceremonial complexes, as well as a massive ballfield. As it turns out, those ancient arenas had some rather remarkable acoustics.
A whispering gallery is believed to have been a design feature of the Mayas' Great Ball Court at Chichen Itza.
According to a 2006 paper submitted to the Acoustical Society of America, the Great Ball Court at Chichen Itza, which has been dated to 1142 CE, has two acoustical features that were noted during excavation in the 1920s. A whispering gallery permits voice communication between temples located 460 ft. apart (anyone who has experienced Grand Central Terminal's Whispering Gallery will understand the effect), and a profound flutter echo can also be heard (at the 0:23 point in the video) between the two large parallel walls of the playing field, who are 270 ft. long, 28 ft. high, and 119 ft. apart. The acoustical artifacts were originally considered unintentional, but later research - interpreting architectural, psychoacoustic, and cognitive features of the Great Ball Court in the context of ancient Mayan culture - suggests instead that they were more likely design features.
Academic Study of Sports-Venue Acoustics and Architecture In fact, an entire subset of archeological academia has grown up around the notion that ancient playing fields were designed with acoustics in mind. Such books as Archaeoacoustics, edited by Chris Scarre and Graeme Lawson and published by Cambridge University, and Spaces Speak, Are You Listening?: Experiencing Aural Architecture, by Barry Blesser and Linda-Ruth Salter (MIT Press), attribute legitimacy to scientific acoustical investigations of archaeological sites.
David Lubman, an acoustical consultant, analyzed the acoustical properties of the Great Ball Court in a paper delivered at a 2006 Acoustical Society of America conference.
The whispering gallery, he wrote, permits excellent voice communication between two persons standing on the raised platform of temples on opposite ends of the ballcourt, 460 ft. apart. It also permits two-way communication between persons on either temple and persons anywhere on the playing field between the temples. The whispering gallery seems unique in that it has no curved surfaces and no continuity of construction except for the earth. I believe that the earth plays little or no part in its workings. I suggest that the physical mechanism of the whispering gallery includes an acoustic waveguide 272 ft. long. The waveguide consists of two smooth, parallel stone walls 119 ft. apart and 28 ft. high. The wide aperture of the waveguide's opening appears to employ diffraction to efficiently beam sound into the end temples.
The presence, he continued, of several distinct, unusual, and culturally meaningful acoustic effects at two of Chichen Itza's monuments suggests the possibility of intentional design. The possibility that the Maya intentionally designed an acoustic waveguide 864 years ago seems particularly exciting.
In case you were wondering, the Mayans didn't fool around when it came to the balls used on that playing field. They were very heavy, made of chicle, a raw material extracted mainly from Mesoamerican trees and also used to make chewing gum. It weighed 6-8 lb., and Mayan athletes could move it only using their hips, shoulders, knees, and elbows; feet, hands, or head could not be used.
The Mayans may or may not have made a science of sports-venue acoustical design, but they seem to have developed a technical language that would likely be familiar to sports acousticians today. As Lubman points out, certain Mayan glyphs have been reinterpreted as representing vibrant sounds and ballcourt echoes. There may even be a glyph for flutter echo.
It wasn't all fun and games, though. Mayan sports had religious and even political implications: acting out creationist myths, satisfying the blood lusts of the gods that also happened to keep the sun and moon in the sky, or as proxies for conflict (a tradition of sports-based wars that remained in the region long after the Mayans were gone). Yankees-Red Sox? That's kid stuff by comparison.
As sophisticated as sports-venue design has become, it's useful to know that it has a history stretching back much longer than line arrays and Jumbotrons. Playing Maya Ball could have lethal consequences for the athletes, but they still had to sound good playing it.
North America Stories
23/09/2026
Four control rooms support B1G+ streams, videoboard shows, creative content, and...
23/09/2026
By Andrew Cohen, SVG Coorespondant
The Mountain West debuted its new Replay Operations Center at the start of this football season, bringing real-time collabor...
23/09/2026
The Taylorville, IL, native is pushing creative boundaries at Ball State, gaining reps across directing, technical directing, tape, and more than 100 ESPN+ broa...
23/09/2026
Alexander Heller, Nevada Jose, Will Brill, and Giselle Bonilla pose with cast members at The Musical premiere during the 2026 Sundance Film Festival at Eccles...
23/09/2026
Nielsen CMI data reveals a changing fast-food landscape, with value, convenience...
23/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
23/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
23/09/2026
COW Jobs: Blender on Windows - Generalist - Remote
Brie Clayton September 23, 2026
0 Comments
Application Users - Blender on Windows - Generalist
Se...
23/09/2026
Version 1.8 recognised for new workflow tools, boosted control panel flexibility and ease of integration into IP networks...
23/09/2026
Hiltron Communications reports a successful 2026 International Broadcasting Convention, held at the RAI Amsterdam. Exhibiting on stand A37 in Hall 1, Hiltron ex...
23/09/2026
Reinforcing its long-term commitment to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) broadcast market, LiveU is presenting the Q Era at CABSAT 2026, on Stand H1-D35 ...
23/09/2026
Agence France-Presse (AFP), a global news agency, and Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced a partnersh...
23/09/2026
Berklee Connect Unlocks the Power of a Global Network Katie Vitolins BM '04 knows firsthand what Berklee's alumni community can make possible. Now she...
23/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
23/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
23/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
23/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
23/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
23/09/2026
Westminster Schools, a K through 12 school in Atlanta, Georgia with approximately 2,000 students, has transformed its student broadcast and digital storytelling...
23/09/2026
The 2026 edition of CABSAT and SATExpo may have a new home and dates in the diary, but it still retains a strong presence from UK companies in the GREAT Britain...
23/09/2026
Glensound will return to CABSAT with new developments in professional monitoring and Dante interfacing, alongside its established commentary, esports and parlia...
23/09/2026
When Sakeena Fiza describes her work as a validation engineer at NVIDIA, she does so in terms more befitting a detective story than a world-class engineering la...
22/09/2026
The annual preseason content-gathering event brought 36 NHL players to Las Vegas, where ESPN used 2.5 kilowatts of laser power and a motion-control camera syste...
22/09/2026
Neumann has introduced the KK 104 A (cardioid) and KK 105 A (supercardioid) wireless capsule heads, succeeding the KK 204 and KK 205. The new capsules are compa...
22/09/2026
The NFL and TMRW Sports have announced a new annual Pro Flag Showcase to be held during Super Bowl LXI week in Los Angeles. The event will feature top flag foot...
22/09/2026
Washington State University has unveiled a new end zone video display and audio ...
22/09/2026
Disney's SVP of Live Operations and Engineering details the technology behin...
22/09/2026
Cosm has announced two senior promotions. Mazen Alawar has been promoted to SVP,...
22/09/2026
Mississippi State University's University Television Center has purchased four KOKUSAI DENKI SK-UHD7000-S2 cameras since 2024, with plans to add two more, a...
22/09/2026
Net Insight has announced that Christine Kjellvard will assume the role of interim Chief Financial Officer on November 1, 2026. Kjellvard has previously held in...
22/09/2026
Net Insight has announced Zyntai TimeNode Access, a compact PTP Grandmaster designed for distributed edge sites. The product carries secure, precise time across...
22/09/2026
Sam Hazeldine, Austin Amelio, Padraic McKinley, Julia Jones, and Ethan Hawke attend the premiere of The Weight at The Ray Theatre on January 26, 2026, in Park...
22/09/2026
Apogee Plugins Are Moving to Plugin Alliance We're excited to share an important update about the future of Apogee plugins.
Apogee plugins are moving to Pl...
22/09/2026
Parkland, Florida, US, September 22, 2026: SipRadius, widely recognized for making content processing and connectivity secure and seamless, has been honored wit...
22/09/2026
VanityFilter 3.1.5 adds project files and adjustable protection around lips, bro...
22/09/2026
Chile's TV Modernizes Broadcast Operations with Blackmagic Design
Brie Clayton September 22, 2026
0 Comments
URSA Broadcast G2 brings versatility...
22/09/2026
OWC Shares Sneak Peek at Amazon Prime Big Deal Days Pricing
Brie Clayton September 22, 2026
0 Comments
Image courtesy of Deposit Photos
Business and ...
22/09/2026
Berklee's First Homecoming Block Party Brings Alumni Home for Global Music F...
22/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/09/2026
NVIDIA AI Day Singapore, which takes place Sept. 22-23 at the Raffles City Conve...
22/09/2026
To build and deploy sophisticated robotics applications that can perceive, reason and act in dynamic environments, developers need new physical AI models and to...