I wonder if the ancient peoples and civilizations had a "tax day" like we do in America? I don't think we will ever really know. The Romans conducted a regular census which was tied to the leveling of taxes. But did the Aztecs and Mayas do the same? How about Tikil? Easter Islanders? Egyptians? Mesopotamians?
Just musing on the prospects that if nothing ever really changes than the ancient people must have hated the tax-man as much as we do today.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Sunday, April 5, 2009
The Aztec Calendar
The Aztec Long Count calendar (tonalpohualli) comes to an end on December 21, 2012. This is the date the world will end. It is also the date when Quetzalcoatl, the primordial god of creation, giver of life, and the presenter of maize, will return to earth. So will Jesus, as the messiah of the Christians and Moslems.
Boy-oh-boy will there be hell to pay when all the Gods of the East come floating down from space to see what we have done with their creation. I wonder where they will land? Are there runways? Will they need to wear space suits? What will their space ships look like? Will the lights of NYC, London, Paris, Bejing, and Mumbai cause them to re-evaluate their planned atmospheric re-entry trajectory? Will we be expected to worship at their feet and sing praises to their name? Will today's corn be as familiar to them as the maize they originally gave to the ancient American indigenous tribal peoples?
In preparation for their return, I say we investigate the potential answers to these questions.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Greetings
Welcome to "The World Ends December 2012." I hope that you find my thoughts on this topic enlightening and informative. Perhaps we will have more in common than you may initially think. Or, we may be polar opposites. In either case, it ought to be fun discussing the upcomming end of the world - or at least the end of the world as we know it. For end it will. The question is when.
The best estimated date for that end is December 21, 2012, when, according to Wikipedia, "the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar, notably used by the Maya civilization among others of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, completes its thirteenth b'ak'tun cycle since the calendar's mythical starting point (equivalent to August 11, 3114 BC in the proleptic Gregorian calendar, according to the "GMT-correlation" JDN= 584283)."
So what does that actually mean? Well, it essentially means that the most accurate calendar ever developed by any human civilization will come to an end. Just because that happens to coincide with the alignment of Gaia (the Earth), Sun, and center of the Milky Way galaxy shouldn't be of any concern. Just because Gaia is due for another shift of magnetic poles at any time should also be of no real concern. The fact that this date coincides with the Winter Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere and the Summer Solstice in the Southern Hemisphere, is no real worry either. Ancient Gods are scheduled to return, Messiahs are to decend from the sky riding on clouds and flaming chariots, and all the computers will simultaneously fail. OK - maybe I'm stretching that last part a bit. It was supposed to have already happened on December 31, 1999; or have we all forgotten Y2K?
In any case, lets get to it. Initially I'll be posting bits and pieces of my thoughts on this subject weekly. As we get closer to December 21, 2012, the posts will become more routine, and hopefully more alarming.
The best estimated date for that end is December 21, 2012, when, according to Wikipedia, "the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar, notably used by the Maya civilization among others of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, completes its thirteenth b'ak'tun cycle since the calendar's mythical starting point (equivalent to August 11, 3114 BC in the proleptic Gregorian calendar, according to the "GMT-correlation" JDN= 584283)."
So what does that actually mean? Well, it essentially means that the most accurate calendar ever developed by any human civilization will come to an end. Just because that happens to coincide with the alignment of Gaia (the Earth), Sun, and center of the Milky Way galaxy shouldn't be of any concern. Just because Gaia is due for another shift of magnetic poles at any time should also be of no real concern. The fact that this date coincides with the Winter Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere and the Summer Solstice in the Southern Hemisphere, is no real worry either. Ancient Gods are scheduled to return, Messiahs are to decend from the sky riding on clouds and flaming chariots, and all the computers will simultaneously fail. OK - maybe I'm stretching that last part a bit. It was supposed to have already happened on December 31, 1999; or have we all forgotten Y2K?
In any case, lets get to it. Initially I'll be posting bits and pieces of my thoughts on this subject weekly. As we get closer to December 21, 2012, the posts will become more routine, and hopefully more alarming.
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