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."
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.
But which time zone?
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."
'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...
According to my calculations, the world ended about three years ago when a black Kenyan Marxist anti-colonialist Nazi with a fake birth certificate seized power in the United States in order to arrange the theft of the Anglo-Hungarian Crown Jewels which were stored inside Lincoln's memorial.
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.
But the cycle is Region 4 only, so it doesn't help us in the US. (Unless you are a dirty Pirate)
It goes boom at 24 hours in every timezone simultaneously, obviously.
Rolling apocalypse
Oh I just remembered something.. I was making cookies for a website, and while setting the expiry date of the cookies, an idea struck. Guess what did I set the expiry date - 21/12/2012 !! Such an epic easter egg !
Have gnu, will travel.
So, in either case, we're still getting wiped out. Good to know!
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.