11 replies to this topic

[Amishway Homesteaders]

Got this in an e-mail from a friend so I don't know where it came from BUT it is true.

a bit long but WOW! that should quiet that bunch that keep saying the world will end in December becuse the Mayan Calendar said so?


Ancient Mayan workshop for astronomers discoveredMay 10, 2012 3:50 PM EDTNEW YORK (AP) — Archaeologists have found a small room in Mayan ruins where royal scribes apparently used walls like a blackboard to keep track of astronomical records and the society's intricate calendar some 1,200 years ago.

The walls reveal the oldest known astronomical tables from the Maya. Scientists already knew they must have been keeping such records at that time, but until now the oldest known examples dated from about 600 years later.

Astronomical records were key to the Mayan calendar, which has gotten some attention recently because of doomsday warnings that it predicts the end of the world this December. Experts say it makes no such prediction. The new finding provides a bit of backup: The calculations include a time span longer than 6,000 years that could extend well beyond 2012.

"Why would they go into those numbers if the world is going to come to an end this year?" observed Anthony Aveni of Colgate University in Hamilton, N.Y., an expert on Mayan astronomy. "You could say a number that big at least suggests that time marches on."

Aveni, along with William Saturno of Boston University and others, report the discovery in Friday's issue of the journal Science.

The room, a bit bigger than 6-feet square, is part of a large complex of Mayan ruins in the rain forest at Xultun in northeastern Guatemala. The walls also contain portraits of a seated king and some other figures, but it's clear those have no connection to the astronomical writings, the scientists said.

One wall contains a calendar based on phases of the moon, covering about 13 years. The researchers said they think it might have been used to keep track of which deity was overseeing the moon at particular times.

Aveni said it would allow scribes to predict the appearance of a full moon years in advance, for example. Such record-keeping was key to Mayan astrology and rituals, and maybe would be used to advise the king on when to go to war or how good this year's crops would be, he said.

"'What you have here is astronomy driven by religion," he said.

On an adjacent wall are numbers indicating four time spans from roughly 935 to 6,700 years. It's not clear what they represent, but maybe the scribes were doing calculations that combined observations from important astronomical events like the movements of Mars, Venus and the moon, the researchers said.

Why bother to do that? Maybe the scribes were "geeks ... who just got carried away with doing these kinds of computations and calculations, and probably did them far beyond the needs of ordinary society," Aveni suggested.

Experts unconnected with the discovery said it was a significant advance.

"It's really a wonderful surprise," said Simon Martin, co-curator of an exhibit about the Mayan calendar at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

While the results of the scribes' work were known from carvings on monuments, "we've never really been able to identify a working space, or how they actually went about things," Martin said.

The new work gives insight into that, he said, and the fact the room had a stone roof rather than thatching supports previous indications that the scribes enjoyed a high social standing.

"It's a very important discovery. We're only getting a glimpse of it" in the published paper, said John B. Carlson, director of the Center for Archaeoastronomy in College Park, Md.

"This is an intriguing start for this discovery."

[Mt_Rider]

Just goes to prove...you just never will know when you know it all

I'd love to see that room...just thinking of how LONG ago people worked out that math. Sheeesh, I can barely add 2+2.

Cool, Michael!

MtRider [ ....Nite! ]

[arby]

anyone that paid attn to the mayan calendar subject knows that Dec 21, 2012 is just the end of one very long cycle and yes 'things' do happen usually when the long cycle ends and this is also a shorter cycle end.....
geologically there can be things going on.

One thing that is going to occur is that certain planets and sun do line up together , but we wont see it in northern hemisphere, the alignment takes place early , around dawn probably, in southern hemisphere and will be seen off the coast, from a specific island , from Chile or Peru. sorry Ive watched alot of NGC stuff on it....
Ive also heard we are NOT going to center of galaxy but off to the side of it, astronomically.....

still, since 2009 we have been having polar shift occuring and it has accelerated , but would need to confirm that with people like the geomapping and coordinates of the earth , aligning with runways and such again.. which did happen in 2009 by 5 degrees and everything had to be revamped, including computer programs for air traffic control.

Yes, the north and south poles do shift... and they do reverse eventually... but it remains to be seen if we will get some gigantic shift right on that date.

If it does we are all in for a terrific roller coaster ride . I am rather content to be inland enough and probably just high enough to maybe have time to go further up the mountains here even walking before some big darn tsunami that rushes up the Hudson and further into the lakes here, doesn't get me! As for quakes, well..... guess we see about that. I have heard that the Equator won't be too far south of my latitude if it does do a major shift , and if all the volcano ash misses me , I should be pretty good during winter time, lol. see........ I can hope for the best right ???




I think I am more afraid of manmade problems now, than this idea, when it comes down to it. And those may well come to a head by then or soon after.

so I think I will just keep prepping anyway. I will rejoice if I wake up on Dec 22nd , though

[Jeepers]

Well, my wedding anniversary was Dec. 21 so that is enough of a doomsday for me.

Also, my birthday starts with 6-6- D-ex said that was close enough (666)

[arby]

Besides, I really think Jesus would return to collect folks before that..... and not all the prophecies are quite fulfilled just yet for that to happen according to what is said about the matter !

What gets me is so many new agers have this idea that suddenly everyone will absolutely fall all over loving everyone else on the planet as of Dec 21 2012. oh, and animals will talk like humans and we shall understand each other and cause no more harm to them....... this list is almost endless drivel they have.....

I'm like, 'are you serious????"

puhlease..... its more likely we have riots because nothing happened and they get all ticked off it didn't.
LOL


don't feel bad, I got married on Friday the 13th, in October! and I know how that turned out!

Edited by arby, 11 May 2012 - 09:11 PM.

[Cat]

Links to stories, videos...

http://abcnews.go.co...overed-16322222

http://news.yahoo.co...-185153809.html

http://www.csmonitor....-12-2012-video
(Picture below from above site)

Four long numbers on the north wall of a ruined Mayan house relatin to the Maya calendar and computations about the moon, sun and possibly Venus and Mars are shown. The dates may stretch some 7,000 years into the future.
REUTERS/William Saturno and David Stuart/National Geographic

I guess I ignore it because the Bible clearly says that the end will come "as a thief in the night"... no man shall know. So any stated date means that it *WON'T* happen then.

[Annarchy]

My theory, for the reason they stopped on that date, they got tired, decided to quit for the day and never got back to it. Maybe, that is when they started the one that goes 7,000 years.

[Amishway Homesteaders]

OK -
Is it just me or is there a smile face right in the middle of that photo cat posted?
I didn't know there went back that far?

[Mt_Rider]

[HazelStone]

Just goes to prove...you just never will know when you know it all

I'd love to see that room...just thinking of how LONG ago people worked out that math. Sheeesh, I can barely add 2+2.

Cool, Michael!

MtRider [ ....Nite! ]

And the Maya did their math in base 20, too...they used their toes to count as well. More potential for arithmetic errors. If Lockheed Martin has crashed one of the Mars probes due to inconsistent units of measure...you can bet some silly New Ager forgot to carry a 1 (or a 20?) somewhere on the calendar system.

[sewandsew]

Hey Arby. I married on Friday the 13th of October. 1981.

[arby]

1978 had a Friday the 13th in October.
that was my date of marriage to my son's dad.