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Visit to NY Metroplotian Museum of Art

We went into NY City today to the Museum. There was an amazing exhibit:
Lives of the Gods: Divinity in Maya Art. There were amazing pieces of art dating back almost 1500+ years.

What struck me as truly amazing, was the fact that the Mayans date the birth of the earth to August 11, 3114, BCE. That year is an interesting landmark. The Jewish calendar shows this year to be 5783. Taking the Mayan calculate year of creation and adding the Gregorian calendar year 2023, one arrives at the year 5137. The Gregorian calendar was first adopted in Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Spain in 1582, and is now universally accepted. The change to the Gregorian calendar was because the previous calendar was thought to be inaccurate. Thus the mere 546 years difference brings you to the question, how could two so diverse ethnic groups date the birth of the earth so similarly?

As a scientist, I "know" the earth is many millions of years old, and the Universe, billions. So why the mismatch, when 2 distinctly different societies are so similar in their calculations?








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ArishMell · 70-79, M
It is an intriguing co-incidence but most ancient civilisations seemed to have created creation myths of their own, as far as they are known, so it is not really surprising some will overlap in their allotted times.

There might be a cut-off point, spanning centuries or millennia, beyond which folk-memory could not have existed, but what, when and why I would not like to guess. The Mayans no more just appeared on the planet, as did the Chinese or the Persians.

The earliest human traces on the Americas suggest a diffusion over the continents taking place at least 10 000 years ago, when low sea-level allowed crossing the Bering Strait, although that would been a very inhospitable region even by today's Arctic standards. It would have taken millennia for these nomads to settle equable regions and nucleating into their own societies capable of creating art and buildings that survive to this day.


The ancient Hebrews made their Year 0 one that some later interpreters and modern literalists crudely tie to the [i]un-dated[/i] Torah or Biblical geneology of their ruling priests; but the Hebrews had to come from somewhere and the Old Testament does refer to vaguely to suppressing older religions. They appear to have originated as mainly Zoroastrians, in Persia (Iran) where that faith is still respected; but also worshipped the agricultural-fertility deity Ba'al.

I do not think the Hebrew priests were even trying to date the age of the Earth as such, certainly not in any genuine way. I credit them for being bright enough to realise they could not do that, but that inventing a simple, metaphorical six-day parable and saying it's "God's Word" would work better than any philosophical reasoning, for coalescing their still-tribal, rather nomadic, religion-dominated followers. So they conflated observed Nature, religion and their own version of only their own history, in a Year 0 approach to founding their own culture and religion - but crucially [i]without [/i]counting years!

They - or the literalists now - failed to spot the contradiction though, in thinking their own was the one originating society, yet also attacking existing religions.


(I have seen the problem of making the Bible and Torah fit the 17C Archbishop Ussher's attempt, revealed by a chart that shows the assorted begettings of begotten sons, would have been by men of fantastically ripe old ages even by 21C standards! )

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We do not and cannot know the real motives for both sets of people, but the Mayans might have done something similar, if only to give some context to their own inception as a functioning society. Most likely, whoever else was about previously, and whatever they did, was no more more relevant to the early Mayans as the older Mediterranean societies were to the likes of Abraham; so why would they have counted them?

Beyond immediate neighbours and some tenuous trading, most of the very many cultures forming and fading over the first 10 millennia BCE on the two American continents, Africa and Eurasia, would have known little or nothing at all of each other.

So that we might see apparent chronological parallels in the self-made histories of just two of these many and varied peoples, is not ever so unlikely, but still only by chance.

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It is an interesting question, but needs be thought open-mindedly in the context of what each culture of very many had for itself and knew about itself, about others and about its own part of the world.

We cannot think for those people, but we can try to consider what may have been their motives in their own regions and times.
samueltyler2 · 80-89, M
@ArishMell great discussion, but still fails to explain the coincidence. That was what really struck my attention. Many cultures also who never would have met, have a great flood story, etc. How did these come about, were there events that affected widely spread cultures and all had verbal histories that eventually became codex?
ArishMell · 70-79, M
@samueltyler2 My thinking it is a coincidence is that firstly the respective ancient calendars and certainly any contemporary histories are not likely to be very accurate, but also so many cultures cam and went over time around the world that for any two, but only two, to have similar ages is quite feasible by sheer chance.

Flood myths are common, but so are floods! Most likely any particular myth would have arisen from folk-memories of one particularly devastating event; and a characteristic of folk-memories stretched orally over many generations before being written down, is of exaggeration and distortion. Especially if intended to make a point rather than being simply a story about One's Ancients.

I have wondered what might have have inspired the Noah story (apart from pure fabrication to make a religious point). One possibility is large-scale flooding of the marshes between the Rivers Tigri and Euphrates; or of one the few other rivers in the area, but how it became so obviously exaggerated is anyone's guess! Hyperbole by the author for effect, perhaps. A few suggest sea-level rise after the last glacial maximum but that was far too long before, and would have been too slow to affect significantly the people about at the time.
samueltyler2 · 80-89, M
@ArishMell i didnt intend to support myths of religions, just commented on the fact that there are these similarities. If we believe evolution happened by random changes then okay. I do believe more in survival of the fittest as the drive behind evolution.
ArishMell · 70-79, M
@samueltyler2 I realised you were neutral on it, but what various cultures believed and how they came to believe it is a fascinating question, especially where their origins and what they replaced, were not recorded.

I think evolution is a bit of both - for example if the change is at least harmless it is likely to be carried on.
samueltyler2 · 80-89, M
@ArishMell change can only really be good if it benefits a species. Mutations that creste a deterrent to reproduction of s species leads to extinction.
ArishMell · 70-79, M
@samueltyler2 Yes, they do, and sometimes the beneficial mutations are driven by environmental changes. While the same changes could kill off other species unable to adapt,
samueltyler2 · 80-89, M
@ArishMell absolutely, but, if unfortunately, given the current environmental situation those mutations and adaptations often take thousands of years to occur.