Old Maya Text Indicates World 'End Date'

1,300-year-old Maya text indicates 'end date' of world

Washington, June 29 (ANI): Archaeologists have discovered a 1,300-year-old Maya text that provides only the second known reference to the so-called "end date" of the Maya calendar, December 21, 2012.

The discovery made while working at the site of La Corona in Guatemala is one of the most significant hieroglyphic finds in decades and it was announced at the National Palace in Guatemala.

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

Since 2008, Canuto and Tomas 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, so we knew they found something important, but we also thought they might have missed something," said Barrientos.

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, according to 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.

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