Ever wonder where basketball came from? Well, Mayan has a version of it, and it 's called Pok Ta Pok! According to Mayan rules, each team has seven players just like any basketball game. All they need was to keep the ball off the ground using only their hips, knees, heads and elbows. The goal was to get the ball over to their captain who was supposed to be running above 4 feet along the sideline wall as shown in the photo. The captain then used a stick to try hitting the ball into that stone ring on the wall corresponding to his team’s side. According to our half-Mayan tour guide, the average Mayan man was about 5’2″ tall back then. It 's got pretty tough to score. So the game could continue through many hours until one team scored. But here 's the interesting difference from the regular NBA game that we are all familiar with. According to our tour guide, the losing team’s captain would stick a pike through the genital of the winning team’s captain into the body. The winning team 's captain was sacrificed this way as an honor. It was said that such pain would elevate him to a divine state. I am not sure if I want to witness this. But every ancient culture has its own way of making sport celebrities.