Further evidence found that Mayan calendar will end this year
12th July 2012
Archaeologists have uncovered a second Mayan inscription in Guatemala referring to 21 December 2012 as the end of the Mayan calendar
The inscription is thought to be 1,300 years old and marks the date as the end of a 5,125 year cycle, discovered at the La Corona dig site. It is also the longest ancient Mayan text ever discovered in Guatemala at 264 hieroglyphs – abandoned by looters for being too old to sell on the black market.
“Last year, we realised that looters... had discarded some carved stones because they were too eroded to sell on the antiquities black market,” said Tomas Barrientos of the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala. “So we knew they had found something important, but we also thought they might have missed something.”
“This text talks about ancient political history rather than prophecy,” said Marcello Canuto, the director of Tulane University Middle America Research Institute. Instead, the inscriptions record 200 years of La Corona history, making a reference to “the end” in a passage about a king's return.
"What this text shows us is that in times of crisis, the ancient Maya used their calendar to promote continuity and stability rather than predict apocalypse," he continued.
Sales of 'doomsday' bunkers have risen by 70% in the US, while others have fled to the French village of Bugarach, supposedly the best place in the world to 'survive' the apocalypse.
Speculation surrounds what the 'end' of the calendar means – many believe it to mean the end of the world itself, including theories that the world will be hit by an asteroid, swallowed by a black hole or devoured by ancient gods.
However, many Mayans dismiss the end of the world as a Western idea. The inscriptions apparently instead refer to the 'end' as the end of the old era, and the start of a new; marking a full cycle of creation.
Explore, Europe's leading adventure operator, offers a tour across Guatemala and Honduras to coincide with the end of the Mayan cycle. Jude Berry, Explore product manager for Central America, commented: "This tour celebrates both the ancient and the modern day Mayans, marking both the end of the Mayan cycle and the Festival of Santo Tomas."
She continued: "The tour is really about both Mayan history and contemporary indigenous communities: learning about the ancient Mayans and exploring the great sites, but also marking this historically significant date within the context of a modern day celebration."
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