Slashdot Mirror
Archaeologists Find Oldest Known Mayan Calendar
sciencehabit writes "A team of American researchers has discovered a small trove of ancient Mayan texts in a surprising place. In a paper published online today in Science, researchers report finding Mayan astronomical tables and other texts painted and incised on the walls of a 1200-year-old residential building at the site of Xultún in Guatemala. The newly discovered astronomical tables are at least 500 years older than those preserved in the Maya codices, giving researchers a new glimpse of science at the height of the Maya civilization. 'I think we are all astonished by this find,' says Stephen Houston, an archaeologist at Brown University who was not part of the team."
They are just trying to make it sound like we will be here longer. We already know that the world goes "boom" on 12/21/12!
And cue an entire slashdot discussion about base(60)less conspiracy theories. Please, any chance of talking about the archaeology here without descending into numerology? No? Oh well...
Please consider this account deleted, I just can't be bothered with the spam anymore.
Was this discovery found in time to interpret it in time for the 12-2012 alignment of the planets?
JJ
New discussion about 2012 and how these new Mayan calendars are "more accurate" than the previously known.
Hence, dooms day is pushed forward in time for another generation to torment and manipulate.
I bet.
if those franciscan pricks hadn't torched all of the maya records we wouldn't have to try and decipher this shit off some half-buried wall. all of it was well preserved on codices but the church figured it would be easier to convert them all if they incinerated their cultural history.
More importantly, the records they found at the site indicate that the Mayans viewed the calendar as CYCLICAL and just like our Bad Girls of Linux Wall Calendar, the world doesn't end when the last day of the Calendar is reached.
Notably absent was the Thirteenth Crystal Skull and ancient UFO instruction manual.
Holy shit! Does this mean we actually all died almost 500 years ago??? Damn, life is like a really bad Voyager episode.
Buy Christmas presents this year?
Plan my New Year's Eve party?
Pay my taxes?
Vote?
This sucks...
"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
2012 ...
Is it 2012 or a different date?
For those who seek perfection there can be no rest on this side of the grave.
'I think we are all astonished by this find,' says Stephen Houston, an archaeologist at Brown University who was not part of the team."
What an insightful comment by someone related with this find. Oh wait...
Now they have to bring in James Spader to tell us what it all means.
The article mentions hi-res images were taken and sent to an expert. Why aren't these online for everyone to see yet? Now that this infomation has been returned to the world, why can't we all enjoy it?
Shows the real end of the world is the day before the day after tomorrow! AAAAaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111
...if they hadn't found it, now would it?
....is an ancient Mayan time traveler.
They weren't Y1K compliant and it killed them all off!
Have gnu, will travel.
we only have so few months before the end of the earth to study the new finds.
There was an unknown error in the submission.
Maybe someone who knows this stuff can chime in. I've heard it said that since the Mayan calendar had no leap year it loses a day every 4 years. So if you add up all the missing leap years the end of the world would have came around the middle of 2011.
Others claim this is incorrect. Which is it?
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
Hey, hey, hey! URL pls!
Defining Statistics and Social Research
In the fifth age, the gods still aren't satisfied with humans, but they've got a raid night coming up, so you know what, just screw it.
I expect humanity won't be wiped out again until the sixth age.
I'm not familiar with the specifics of mayan calendar but what you say sounds very suspect. December of 2012 translating to middle of 2011 is about 1,5 years or about 550 days worth of error. Error of 1 day for each four years means that it would take about 2200 years to accumulate that much error... and before this find, we didn't know that the calendar has existed for even half that time. To accumulate enough error to get barely to the end of 2011 would take about 1400 years, which is still - even after this - longer than the calendar might have existed as far as we know.
So I think it's safe to say it's incorrect. I don't know whether the leap years do result in error but if they do, I'd expect the error to be much less than the amount you stated.
Interestingly enough, we do now know that they used the calendar system at least 1200 years ago and still used it 700 years ago... If they didn't account for leap year, that's over three and a half months of error accumulated. If they didn't make any corrections, I guess they were okay with shifting years?
I keep looking at the date 12/21/12 and keep wondering what this 21st month is. I have to keep reminding myself that "you people" use MM/DD/YY instead of DD/MM/YY, it just feels like going back and forth.
(Not being a troll, or seeding flamebait, just stating a small fact that contributes nothing to the on-topic conversation, oh wait...)
A team of American researchers has discovered a small trove of ancient Mayan texts in a surprising place. In a paper published online today in Science.
Indeed, surprising place!
According to my iPhone there is no calendar beyond Wednesday 2nd April 2149. It won't even let you book an all day event, so the end must come sometime during that day.
You may think me a tired, old, cynic. I'd have to disagree about the tired bit.
I have to wonder what the majority reaction would be if every US citizen was read that little snippet. And Lo and Behold: there's good ole 15 of 19 Saudi Arabia again!
Hey its prior art!
you meant to say 21/12/12, or 12/12/21?
Are we all going to die?
Because Buddhism in Afghanistan was wiped out by the Muslims.
There is another Mullah Omar quote for you: "Muslims should be proud of smashing idols. It has given praise to God that we have destroyed them."
139 comments and nobody has bothered to ask who their decorator was??
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
No one with a basic understanding of Mayan mythology would say that the Maya were predicting "the end of the world" in 2012, unless by "end of the world" (actually, "end of time") you mean the end of the world as we have thus far known it. The Maya were tuned in to the baktun cycles reflecting major evolutionary shifts on the planet. And it's not a major singular event, the end date marks a mid point within a slightly larger time cycle that denotes a gradual shift. It is an accelerated shift, but not a sudden one.
2012 apocalyptic hysteria is simply an expression of the mass consciousness egoic fear of change. Deep down we all know major change is happening and more on the way (climate change, social change, change in governance, economy, labor structures), which is going to require letting go of a lot of our old ways of being and doing, which is very scary for most folks, and looks like apocalypse. The forest has to burn to stay healthy. We're all gonna be fine.
"Molest me not with this pocket calculator stuff."
- Deep Thought
The source of the drink of gods, the currency of ancient mayan people now used for making cookies. This is why the human world will be destroyed, we are deliciously cursed.
Mexico: 100% conservative's America now!
In Mexico currently in theaters there is a picture called "La Cristiada" english name "For Greater Glory" about the religious civil war that ran intermittently from 1926 to 1937. Aside being a whitewash for those mexican taliban, these bastards, specially in the 30's engaged in a campaign to mutilate and murder school teachers. The most egregious example that I remember that happened in a town close to the place I was born in that the "Cristeros" gang raped and mutilated a female teacher, Maria R. Murillo, for the supposed crimes of being protestant and communist, when in reality she was catholic. They murdered more than 200 teachers, cut the ears and noses from many, many more and burned dozens of schools. My grandmother, together with her father and brothers had several skirmishes with them. They killed protestant, atheist and jews equally, had a little bit more compunction when they murdered catholics, but not much since "they were not pious enough". The remnants of cristeros were a source of concern in Mexico in WWII because many of them were collaborators of the european Axis powers.
The quote is from the admonishment that gave catholic priests to parents at the time.
Mexico: 100% conservative's America now!
Are we all going to die?
No, not all, certainly not.
Some of us will simply miss the boat, like always.