This rubbing was made by Merle Greene Robertson, a distinguished Bay Area scholar and artist, of a carved panel from the archaeological site of Chichen Itza, a large Maya city center that flourished on the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico after 800 CE. This scene is from the Great Ballcourt and depicts the culmination of a ballgame: the decapitation and sacrifice of a member of the losing team. The victor stands on the left and holds an obsidian blade in one hand and the bloody head of the defeated player in the other. The vanquished kneels on the right. Blood, depicted as serpents, spurts from his neck and a tall flowering plant grows from his wounded body. The ball, shown at an exaggerated size and decorated with a skull, sits between the players. This rubbing, and the others made by Robertson, serve as valuable records as the original carvings are exposed to the eroding forces of the elements at the archaeological site.