Key Points
An apparent stone scoreboard has been discovered at the Chichen Itza archaeological site in southeastern Mexico, archaeologists have said..
It displays Mayan hieroglyphic writing surrounding two players standing next to a ball, according to Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH)...
"In this Mayan site, it is rare to find hieroglyphic writing, let alone a complete text," archaeologist Francisco Perez, who is coordinating investigations in the Chichanchob complex, said...
"The limestone circle, which has Mayan hieroglyphics on its edge and in the middle of it of Mayan dignitaries playing Pok Ta Pok, the pre-Columbian ball game, can change the history of the site by providing a new element that we were not aware of," Marco Antonio Santos Ramirez, director of the Chichen Itza archaeological site, said..
Santos Ramirez told the EFE news agency that the text on the newly discovered stone could be the last hieroglyphics that reflect the Mayan culture of late antiquity, or around 650-900 A.D.. "Mayan classical literature stops at around 900 AD, during the glory days of Chichen Itza," Ramirez said..
