This ball-game player is making an offering of a human heart to the
celestial diety emerging from the jaws of a stylized jaguar. The diety may be a
sun good. The face, which is in high relief, is human, but flames act as
substitutes for locks of hair and also radiate from both arms and around the
sun-disk pendant hanging from the god's neck.
The defeated player is portrayed as of smaller stature and already dead.
His body takes on the form of a skeleton wearing ball-game
paraphernalia-yoke, knee pad, and either serpent-effegy glove or handstone.
He points with his forefinger at the heart offering, as if to bring attention to
the glory of sacrifice. A typical Cotzumalhuapa "tabbed" speech scroll connects
the two figures, the one living and the other dead. The decapitated head rests
upon a skull rack.
The heart being offered in sacrifice is an anthropomorphic cacao pod.
Note the closed eye, turned-down mouth, and the stem and casing of the pod
which is held a loft by the ball game victor, over whose head are two Ocelotl
glyphs.
