瑪雅考古新發現推翻"世界末日說"
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.
研究人員上週四稱，考古學家在危地馬拉的一處遺址中發現了已知最古老的瑪雅曆法，裏面並未提到2012年是世界末日。
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.
《科學》期刊上的一篇研究報告稱，序頓雨林中的這處住宅遺址的牆壁上畫有壁畫，這裏很可能是城鎮的抄寫員做記錄的地方，他在牆壁上潦草地計算着，試圖找到“天象和神祭之間的和諧”。
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.
這些象形文字可以追溯到九世紀，比瑪雅刻本曆法提早了數百年。瑪雅刻本於公元1300年到1521年記載在樹皮紙做的書上。
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.
率領探勘挖掘的波士頓大學考古學家威廉姆-薩圖諾表示，其中一些符號似乎是365天的太陽曆，584天的金星週期及780天的火星週期。
According to Saturno, the writing looks like someone's attempt to sort out a very long math problem, as if on a blackboard.
薩圖諾表示，書寫痕跡看起來像是有人試圖在黑板上整理出很長的數學問題。
"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.
他說：“我們第一次見到可能是抄寫人員留下的真實記錄，其工作就是瑪雅社會的官方記錄員。”
"The ancient Maya predicted the world would continue, that 7,000 years from now, things would be exactly like this," he added.
他補充說：“古老瑪雅預言世界會延續下去，即7000年後情況就像現在一樣。”
"We keep looking for endings. The Maya were looking for a guarantee that nothing would change. It's an entirely different mindset."
“我們一直在尋找世界末日，瑪雅則力尋一切都不會變的保證，心態完全不同。”
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.
此外，大肆炒作的瑪雅曆法將在2012年結束，以及世界末日會隨之到來的說法都沒有現實依據。
All that ended in 2012 was one of its calendar cycles, said co-author Anthony Aveni, professor of astronomy and anthropology at Colgate University.
研究合著者、科爾蓋特大學天文學兼人類學教授安東尼-艾凡尼表示，在2012年結束的只是其中一個曆法週期。
"It's like the odometer of a car, with the Maya calendar rolling over from the 120,000s to 130,000," said Aveni.
艾凡尼說：“瑪雅曆法就像汽車的里程錶從12萬公里翻到了13萬公里。”
"The car gets a step closer to the junkyard as the numbers turn over; the Maya just start over," he added.
“隨着數字的升級，汽車離報廢又近了一步，但瑪雅曆法只是又重新開始了。”
