Skwim
Veteran Member
. . . At least that is the conclusion of a German expert who says his decoding of a Mayan tablet with a reference to a 2012 date denotes a transition to a new era and not a possible end of the world as others have read it.
The interpretation of the hieroglyphs by Sven Gronemeyer of La Trobe University in Australia was presented for the first time on Wednesday at the archaeological site of Palenque in southern Mexico.
His comments came less than a week after Mexico's archaeology institute acknowledged there was a second reference to the 2012 date in Mayan inscriptions, touching off another round of talk about whether it predicts the end of the world.
A scene from the film 2012, which refers to the idea that the Mayan calendar
predicts the end of the world. Photograph: SONY/Sportsphoto Ltd/Allstar
Gronemeyer has been studying the stone tablet, which was found years ago at the archaeological site of Tortuguero in Mexico's Gulf coast state of Tabasco.
He said the inscription described the return of the mysterious Mayan god Bolon Yokte at the end of a 13th period of 400 years, known as Baktuns, on the equivalent of 21 December 2012. Mayans considered 13 a sacred number. There is nothing apocalyptic in the date, he said.
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