Today, I noticed a pretty significant hurdle in my plans to write something or try something new everyday for a year. The Mayan Calendar, dum dum dum. Supposedly the world will end on December 21st, 2012, a mere 15 days before my 27th birthday! Just ask any old person and they’ll tell you “people have been saying the world is going to end all my life.”
In all likelihood 12/21/2012 will pass without any cataclysmic event. Just like all those other apocalyptic prophecies. I'm talking about Hale Bop, Y2K, and, oh yeah, remember the rapture last year?
So I started thinking about something I read on Cracked a year or so ago about a little known theory positing the middle ages didn’t actually happen. If that is the case, it means we have an extra 297 years to party like it's 1999.
If you actually believe something cataclysmic will occur at the end of the Mayan Calendar, you may be able to rest assuredly tonight. There is something called “The Phantom Time Theory” developed by German Conspiracy Theorist Heribert Illig and scientist Dr. Hans-Ulrich Niemitz. Take that, Mayans.
Illig and Niemitz believe it is actually the year 1715 and the Middle Ages were merely the product of either misinterpretation, ego-centricity on the part of the Holy Roman emperors, or just plain made up by bored historians and chronologists. Notably though, they believe most documents we believe to be from the medieval times are actually outright forgeries or misdated. This is a pretty western-centric theory, but here is the reasoning behind it.
If you actually believe something cataclysmic will occur at the end of the Mayan Calendar, you may be able to rest assuredly tonight. There is something called “The Phantom Time Theory” developed by German Conspiracy Theorist Heribert Illig and scientist Dr. Hans-Ulrich Niemitz. Take that, Mayans.
Illig and Niemitz believe it is actually the year 1715 and the Middle Ages were merely the product of either misinterpretation, ego-centricity on the part of the Holy Roman emperors, or just plain made up by bored historians and chronologists. Notably though, they believe most documents we believe to be from the medieval times are actually outright forgeries or misdated. This is a pretty western-centric theory, but here is the reasoning behind it.
Since I’ve always believed our conception of time is really just a social construct and someone had to determine what was what or when was when, I started reading more about the theory this morning. It turns out, there are actually some respected historians and chronologists who believe that our primary sources and modern scientific dating techniques really could be wrong or have been interpreted erroneously, concluding that our current conception of dates and events are less than accurate.
For example a rather respected Russian mathematician named Anatoly Fomenko believes, “Archaeological, dendrochronological, paleographical and carbon methods of dating of ancient sources and artifacts are both non-exact and contradictory, therefore there is not a single piece of firm written evidence or artifact that could be reliably and independently dated earlier than the XI century.” Fomenko bases his theory on statistical correlations from primary sources, zodiac dating, and reviewing the mathematical and astronomical premises behind historical chronology.
Astronomically, the Gregorian calendar we know now could be correct as recordings or lunar eclipse and comet sightings have been dated with much accuracy. However, Fomenko and Illig also believe these lunar year projections are inaccurately recorded as well. Radiocarbon dating also seems to disprove Fomenko and Illig, which each of them say is inaccurate too, so it is sort of a roundabout.
Nothing is certain in life and plans change all the time. At the end of the day though, one thing is for sure; if the Mayans were right, we had better all start hoping Fomenko, et al. are too!
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