Saturday, June 2, 2012

Myth or maya?

From the Economic Times of India: Myth or maya?

A friend sent an anthology called Mystery of 2012, which she published in Mumbai under her imprint. One essay delves into the mysteries of the Mayan calendar. Another weighs the evidence for the predicted shift in the earth's magnetic field. Yet another examines the possibility of 'accelerated pace of evolution', ostensibly transforming us into a brash new species.

Now, if you believed in any of this, you'd have lots of company: for, according to a Reuters survey, 10% of the global population subscribed to the ancient Mayan prophecy about the world's end.

But why should we believe a prophecy attributed to a culture that could not predict its own end or that of the Aztecs at the swords wielded by Conquistador 'gods'? And if you believe the latest news-flash from National Geographic, a treasure trove of calendars and paintings recently unearthed from Guatemala is lending welcome support to the optimists. Anthropologists have found new images of the calculations left behind by Mayan soothsayers on the walls of a small chamber.

Here, a Mayan nerd seems to have left behind numbers and time stretches that reach 7,000 years into the future.

This debunks the apocalyptic mythmakers who insist that the Mayan calendar stops at 5,000 years and that we're supposedly coming up to the end of the very last stretch. The moral of the new discovery is that there's obviously a lot more to the Mayan calendars than the naysayers would have led us to believe.

Also, the cosmos is infinitely more robust and resilient. Don't expect it to be toppled by twaddle.

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