New Mayan Reference to December 21, 2012
This is a win/lose for both the academics and independent researchers. The academics have long said that with only one mention of the end of the Long Count calendar written in Mayan stone – Tortuguero Monument 6 – it can’t have been that important to the Maya. Well now there is a second mention. However it doesn’t discuss anything like a doomsday, so choose your own interpretation.
A single king used the end date for his own political propaganda. So, while it reinforces that the date was well known and regarded as important, the king’s (mis-) appropriation could be outside of the usual context. For all we know, mentioning the date might have been regarded as inappropriate and insensitive.
Here’s a summary of the inscription from Professor David Stuart who has been working on it:
The basic message of this one text is nonetheless clear: it commemorates a key political event in the life of La Corona’s court, namely the visit by a ruling king of Calakmul just months after he had been defeated in war. No details of the shifting geopolitics of this time are given, but we do have an emphasis on the episode’s temporal and cosmological context. Soon before his defeat at the hands of Tikal, Yuknoom Yich’aak K’ahk’ had been the celebrant of the great k’atun ending of the era, 9.13.0.0.0. His unusual title here “13 k’atun lord” emphasizes this key part of his identity, and is carefully juxtaposed with a mention of the like-in-kind 13.0.0.0.0 bak’tun ending in order to place the king’s rule and status on a much broader temporal stage. So even in inglorious defeat, Yuknoom Yich’aak K’ahk’ was still the King of Time.
Go to the Tulane University page for videos, drawings and so on.
For any conspiracy theorists, while it would seem like discoveries like this have been fed to us belatedly to counter 2012 hysteria, David says the hieroglyphic stairway was discovered in April or May of this year. If he had said it was discovered several years ago and only deciphered now, I’d be suspicious… but he didn’t!
This text would have been a noteworthy find in any year, but its revelation now, just months before December 21, is extraordinary timing indeed.
Although… David says it was the bottom-most step that was discovered this year. Two years ago he was referring to the staircase (HS 2). I’m not one to tell archaeologists how to do their job, but surely uncovering the bottom of a stone staircase doesn’t take 2+ years??
