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The earliest known Mayan calendar offers no hint that the world's end is imminent. |
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The earliest known Mayan calendar has been found in an ancient house in Guatemala and it offers no hint that the world's end is imminent, researchers said Thursday. Rather, the painted room in the residential complex at Xultun was likely the place where the town scribe kept records, scrawling computations on the walls in an effort to find "harmony between sky events and sacred rituals," said the study in the journal Science. The hieroglyphs date back to the ninth century, making them hundreds of years older than the calendars in the Maya Codices, which were recorded in bark-paper books from 1300 to 1521. Some appear to be the 365-day solar calendar, the 584-day cycle of the planet Venus and the 780-day cycle of Mars, said archaeologist William Saturno of Boston University, who led the exploration and excavation. According to Saturno, the writing looks like someone's attempt to sort out a very long math problem, as if on a blackboard. "For the first time we get to see what may be actual records kept by a scribe, whose job was to be official record keeper of a Maya community," Saturno said. "The ancient Maya predicted the world would continue, that 7,000 years from now, things would be exactly like this," he added. "We keep looking for endings. The Maya were looking for a guarantee that nothing would change. It's an entirely different mindset." Furthermore, there is no sign that the much-hyped myth that the Mayan calendar would end in 2012, and with it the world, has any bearing in reality. All that ended in 2012 was one of its calendar cycles, said co-author Anthony Aveni, professor of astronomy and anthropology at Colgate University. "It's like the odometer of a car, with the Maya calendar rolling over from the 120,000s to 130,000," said Aveni. "The car gets a step closer to the junkyard as the numbers turn over; the Maya just start over," he added. (Read by Emily Cheng. Emily Cheng is a journalist at the China Daily Website.) (Agencies) |
研究人員上周四稱，考古學(xué)家在危地馬拉的一處遺址中發(fā)現(xiàn)了已知最古老的瑪雅歷法，里面并未提到2012年是世界末日。 《科學(xué)》期刊上的一篇研究報(bào)告稱，序頓雨林中的這處住宅遺址的墻壁上畫(huà)有壁畫(huà)，這里很可能是城鎮(zhèn)的抄寫(xiě)員做記錄的地方，他在墻壁上潦草地計(jì)算著，試圖找到“天象和神祭之間的和諧”。 這些象形文字可以追溯到九世紀(jì)，比瑪雅刻本歷法提早了數(shù)百年?，斞趴瘫居诠?300年到1521年記載在樹(shù)皮紙做的書(shū)上。 率領(lǐng)探勘挖掘的波士頓大學(xué)考古學(xué)家威廉姆-薩圖諾表示，其中一些符號(hào)似乎是365天的太陽(yáng)歷，584天的金星周期及780天的火星周期。 薩圖諾表示，書(shū)寫(xiě)痕跡看起來(lái)像是有人試圖在黑板上整理出很長(zhǎng)的數(shù)學(xué)問(wèn)題。 他說(shuō)：“我們第一次見(jiàn)到可能是抄寫(xiě)人員留下的真實(shí)記錄，其工作就是瑪雅社會(huì)的官方記錄員。” 他補(bǔ)充說(shuō)：“古老瑪雅預(yù)言世界會(huì)延續(xù)下去，即7000年后情況就像現(xiàn)在一樣?！?/p> “我們一直在尋找世界末日，瑪雅則力尋一切都不會(huì)變的保證，心態(tài)完全不同?！?/p> 此外，大肆炒作的瑪雅歷法將在2012年結(jié)束，以及世界末日會(huì)隨之到來(lái)的說(shuō)法都沒(méi)有現(xiàn)實(shí)依據(jù)。 研究合著者、科爾蓋特大學(xué)天文學(xué)兼人類學(xué)教授安東尼-艾凡尼表示，在2012年結(jié)束的只是其中一個(gè)歷法周期。 艾凡尼說(shuō)：“瑪雅歷法就像汽車的里程表從12萬(wàn)公里翻到了13萬(wàn)公里?！?/p> “隨著數(shù)字的升級(jí)，汽車離報(bào)廢又近了一步，但瑪雅歷法只是又重新開(kāi)始了?！?/p> 相關(guān)閱讀 美國(guó)：62%人認(rèn)為2012年會(huì)更好 美發(fā)布“僵尸預(yù)警指南” 指導(dǎo)民眾避難 （中國(guó)日?qǐng)?bào)網(wǎng)英語(yǔ)點(diǎn)津 Julie 編輯：陳丹妮） |
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Vocabulary: scribe: 抄寫(xiě)員 hieroglyph: 秘密符號(hào)，圖畫(huà)文字 |
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