End of the world

[RenegadeXH]

END OF THE WORLD IS COMMING ACORDING TO THE MAYANS

Most people dont know a ton about the Mayans, the most advanced aincent civilization in the Americas. They wrote the first books in the hemisphere, created one of the few independently deveoped languages in the world, created an acurate callander, and maped out the entire night sky. They were also quite blood thirsty in some ways, there wars were horid, and they practiced human sacrafices. They played a game where, if you loose, you die. The king and queen of the emporer practiced genitel blood letting to apease the gods, and yes it is exactly what it sounds like. The king would cut his penis and let it bleed.

Now heres the good part, their callander went for thosands of years into the future, they have predicted solar ecipses that happended the last couple of years that were only a few seconds off. Well here it is, there callander has an end... The end of the world. The date? Dec 23 2012.

 

[Ribannah]

Not to worry. We will have landed on Alpha Centauri by then (I just launched)

 

[Pellaken]

I'll belive those when I see a TV program, or read a book, from before 2000, that says there will be a catastrophic event on september 11th 2001. all these predictions are nothing more then stories.

 

[Sodak]

Originally posted by RenegadeXH
Most people dont know a ton about the Mayans,

I do.

Originally posted by RenegadeXH
They ... created one of the few independently deveoped languages in the world,

No more independent than others, but it was/is a closely knit group of tongues unique from its neighbors.

Originally posted by RenegadeXH
They played a game where, if you loose, you die.

The ballgame was a religious ritual, some sort of re-enactment of one of the most important events in the Maya creation stories. The Hero Twins, the main characters in these stories, defeated death by winning the ball game and resurrecting their father, the maize god. To put a very long story into one sentence, anyway...

Originally posted by RenegadeXH
The king and queen of the emporer practiced genitel blood letting to apease the gods, and yes it is exactly what it sounds like. The king would cut his penis and let it bleed.

Blood is the primary conduit of chulel, the spirit energy that gives life to all things. Bloodletting and sacrifice were (still are, just not with humans any more ) repayment to the gods for the bounty provided by the earth. Not only royals did this, priests and even commoners joined in the activity. The genitals were chosen because they are the reproductive parts - "other" body fluids also contain chulel, if you catch my drift.

Originally posted by RenegadeXH
Now heres the good part, their callander went for thosands of years into the future, they have predicted solar ecipses that happended the last couple of years that were only a few seconds off. Well here it is, there callander has an end... The end of the world. The date? Dec 23 2012.

This does not mean the end of the world in the european sense. It is actually called the overturning of the world, to use the Maya phrase. It is a symbolic change from the current existence to a new (in this case, the 5th) existence of life/the world. It was used in the past to signify major changes in the world - The first creations were attempts by the gods to make a good world. Humans were added in the third world. The fourth is the present. I don't know what they fortell the next overturning to bring. In any case, it doesn't mean we'll all die, the world will blow up, or stuff like that. It means life will change significantly in many ways - some subtle, others conspicuous.

 

[Sodak]

FYI, indian world cycles are based on the astronomical observations of planetary conjunctions. Jupiter and Saturn meet in the sky every ~20 years, each time a few degrees further around the horizon. When they again meet at the original starting position, one cycle is complete. That lasts about 800 years - 41 conjunctions.

 

[RenegadeXH]

Wow, i guess i should be more careful about the intersting facts i post about civiliziations and limit myself to the ones i know more about, because i definatly got completely told. Sorry ill try not to post things as facts unless im alittle more sure about it, that way i wont need to be corrected about every line.

 

[Sodak]

Really, nothing you stated was wrong, it just needed some context!

But won't you have the last laugh if the world explodes on december 23, 2012...

 

[RenegadeXH]

Yeah really, and thanks for explaning everything, I love history, and its great to understand it better when ever i dont quite understand somthing. thanks!

 

[Richard III]

Yes, the Mayans are outrageously cool, and my number one vote for new civ. I should say this in part because of my recent visit to Chichen Itza, where I had a great guide who was a tiny Mayan archealogist working on the site. I highly recommend the trip for Civ players stuck in the Americas; it and Quebec City's Old Town are the only spots on the continent that I've seen so far where you really get a sense of walking completely into a real rather than artificial past. There are also smaller but more accessible sites at Palenque and Tula, which are all within a few hours drive of cheap or expensive hotels along the beaches of the Yucatan.

But my point, anyway, which seems to have been hinted at by Sodak, is that I distinctly remember the guide's story in the ball-game field, surrounded as it was by acoustically sensitive high stone walls for spectators.

He noted the old theory about the game, and the carvings on the walls that recorded the high points of the game. That theory said that the players who lost would die. But he then explained that theory had changed over time, on mounting evidence that sacrifice under certain circumstances was considered an honor. The new theory was that the WINNERS were in fact the ones who would die, not the losers.

R.III

 

[Nahuixtelotzin]

Well, most things already pointed out by Sodak.
NTL, two additions:
I think what Renegade XH meant with "language" was rather "writing system", at least this reading makes more sense to me.
And you should have maybe added that the end of one period/sun/world is always accompanied by a cataclysm and the destruction of the main being, in this case: the maize-man (=humans)

 

[rjgo]

Pellaken, actually, i saw somethin on the discovery channel about this, so their you go.

shalom

rjgo

 

[Sodak]

Originally posted by Nahuixtelotzin
I think what Renegade XH meant with "language" was rather "writing system", at least this reading makes more sense to me.
And you should have maybe added that the end of one period/sun/world is always accompanied by a cataclysm and the destruction of the main being, in this case: the maize-man (=humans)

In that sense, yes - the writing system is very unique. It's notable that much of it still remains to be learned. For example, a glyph could be used for an object (such as a shaman icon meaning a shaman) or for syllables - itz as a part of a larger word. It probably made good sense to them, but makes for agonizing deciphering. Different groups also had slightly different glyphs - a sort of dialect in stone.

You are right about the maize god going thru a cycle of rebirth, too. Good point!

 

[Pellaken]

Originally posted by rjgo
Pellaken, actually, i saw somethin on the discovery channel about this, so their you go.

shalom

rjgo

where, when. prove it.

 

[Stefan Haertel]

quote:

Originally posted by RenegadeXH
The king and queen of the emporer practiced genitel blood letting to apease the gods, and yes
it is exactly what it sounds like. The king would cut his penis and let it bleed.



Blood is the primary conduit of chulel, the spirit energy that gives life to all things. Bloodletting and sacrifice were
(still are, just not with humans any more ) repayment to the gods for the bounty provided by the earth. Not only
royals did this, priests and even commoners joined in the activity. The genitals were chosen because they are the
reproductive parts - "other" body fluids also contain chulel, if you catch my drift.

Does this have anything to do with king Yat-Bahaläm of Yaxchilán?

 

[Sodak]

:grad:
(Sodak quickly grabs handy book of maya history...)

Uh... I'm sure he ties into it somehow...

For anyone not familiar, he is depicted on stellae showing the ascension of a decendant. He is ritually conjured at the ceremony, maybe to assure the masses that the new fellow in charge is legit. Who pierced what with a stingray spine is unbeknownst to me, but I imagine plenty of blood flowed at important ceremonies like that.

 

[Stefan Haertel]

I was actually referring to the meaning of the name (yes, it's a cheap and very pubertal joke).

 

[History_Buff]

Well, I guess its the end of the world as we know it, but I feel fine.

 

[EdwardTking]

Dec 23 2012

Let me guess.

The new super collider creates a Higgs Boson particle that turns in to a black hole that eats the world; as prophesised on LEX.

 

[amadeus]

A man that makes ten false predictions is uninformed,

A man that makes 20,000 false predictions and one true prediction is a prophet.

 

[Octavian X]

Kind of interesting fact, but the Aztecs also had a calendar. On this calendar, they predicted they exact day that the Spanish landed in Aztec territory. According to legend, a god who was white with a beard left into the sea, promising to return on a certain day. On that predicted day, the Spanish arrived, and the Aztec Empire was doomed.