A group of archaeologists announced they have discovered the oldest version of Maya astronomical calendar known so far, and that the finding confirms what has been said by other scientists before: the Maya predicted the end of the world by 2012.

On the walls of a room made of stone in a village known as Xultún, in the jungles of Petén (northern Guatemala), there were pictures of soldiers and hundreds of hieroglyphs that represent how the Maya wrote numbers and had their calendars.

This room would have been the work space of a scribe of the people, as explained in the latest issue of Science.

Some of the symbols represent various cycles of the Mayan calendar: the ceremonial calendar of 260 days, the solar calendar of 365 days, the 584-day cycle of the planet Venus and the cycle of 780 days of the planet Mars, explained the archaeologist William Saturno of Boston University, leader of the exploration and excavation of this site, originally discovered about 100 years ago.

The Maya were great astronomers, developed complex calendar and happen liked to figure out when celestial phenomena as eclipses.

One of the most elaborate Mayan texts, known as the Dresden Codex by custodiarse in the State library of the German city, is just a calendar that shows, among other things, what gods influence every day.

Significance of the finding. “For the first time we can see what records can be made by a scribe, whose job was to be the Notary in the Mayan community,” said William Saturno.

“There is little symbols on the walls, rods and points representing columns of numbers. It’s like the kind of thing that only appear in one place: the Code of Dresden, the Maya wrote many centuries later. We have not seen anything like this, “said David Stuart, an expert on Mesoamerican art and writing at the University of Texas at Austin.

Codes such as Dresden, created in a paper type, date between 1300 and 1521 AD, known as the Late Postclassic period. Precursors Calendars Classic period, from 200 to 900 AD, had not been found.

No end. The scientists explained that, contrary to what some people believe, there is no sign that the Mayan calendar (let alone the world) will end in 2012.

“It’s like the odometer of a car, with the Mayan calendar from the 120,000 to 130,000. The car gets a little closer to the junkyard, but the Mayan calendar just start again, “said Anthony Aveni, an astronomer at Colgate University and coauthor of the article.

“The ancient Mayans predicted the world will continue,” said Saturn.

As for Stuart, the concept of the Mayan calendar has been “manipulated” and when the December 21, 2012 end of the period 13, the schedule will start over and thus continue its cycles over millions of years.

Who argue that the world will end in 2012, based on the 13 long cycles of the Mayan calendar, known as baktun, will face the finding that older this calendar is 17 baktun, which adds about 1,500 years to the accounts.