Friday

No Mayan 2012 doomsday per new monument discovery

Archaeologists working at the site of La Corona in Guatemala have discovered a 1,300-year-old-year Maya text that provides only the second known reference to the so-called “end date” of the Maya calendar, December 21, 2012.

The discovery, one of the most significant hieroglyphic finds in decades, was announced today at the National Palace in Guatemala.

“This text talks about ancient political history rather than prophecy,” says Marcello A. Canuto, director of Tulane’s Middle American Research Institute and co-director of the excavations at La Corona.

Since 2008, Canuto and Tomás Barrientos of the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala have directed excavations at La Corona, a site previously ravaged by looters.

“Last year, we realized that looters of a particular building had discarded some carved stones because they were too eroded to sell on the antiquities black market,” said Barrientos, “so we knew they found something important, but we also thought they might have missed something.”

What Canuto and Barrientos found was the longest text ever discovered in Guatemala.

Carved on staircase steps, it records 200 years of La Corona history, states David Stuart, director of the Mesoamerica Center at The University of Texas at Austin, who was part of a 1997 expedition that first explored the site.


While deciphering these new finds in May, Stuart recognized the 2012 reference on a stairway block bearing 56 delicately carved hieroglyphs.

It commemorated a royal visit to La Corona in AD 696 by the most powerful Maya ruler of that time, Yuknoom Yich’aak K’ahk’ of Calakmul, only a few months after his defeat by long-standing rival Tikal in AD 695. Thought by scholars to have been killed in this battle, this ruler was visiting allies and allaying their fears after his defeat. (VIA MessageToEagle.com )


Images credit: Tulane University

Image credit: Tulane University

VIDEO Discovery of 1300 Year Old Maya Text References 2012 Mayan End Date


Responses to "2012 Maya Monument Discovered By Archaeologists (Video)"

  1. Anonymous says:

    Is there another video that I missed?
    I heard NOTHING referencing 2012 in the video above.

  2. Osiris says:

    It commemorated a royal visit.

  3. Anonymous says:

    There was nothing on 2012 mentioned. They would probably lose their grant money if there was something and they told.

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