This honestly sounds like something a college football fan today would come up with.
"When I die, reconstruct me as a football so I can forever be associated with my favorite team. Roll tide!"
Apparently, in ancient Mayan culture, important people would be cremated and then their ashes would be mixed with rubber and made into rubber balls that the Mayans used for sports.
I know we love our sports, but apparently, the Mayans loved them on a different level.
From Reuters:
The pyramids of the ancient Mayan city of Tonina rise high above the jungle of southeastern Mexico, but deep under the site's most important pyramid a once-forgotten crypt is shining new light on the rites and rituals of this civilization.
Inside the chamber, discovered in 2020 and likely built between the 7th and 8th centuries, archeologists found 400 vessels containing human ashes mixed with rubber and roots.
The findings support archeologist Juan Yadeun's hypothesis that important figures' remains were incorporated into balls used in sport - "a transformation of the body" that allowed them to live on after their death.
You know, if I was looking for life after death, I don't think my preferred fate would be to become a rubber ball to be bounced and kicked around and tossed through a hoop.
But, hey, I guess that's one way to leave a legacy.
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