"The world's oldest civilization warned us..."

Post #315,057 by rcareaga 10/5/09 11:58:31 AM Reply	"The world's oldest civilization warned us..." The world's oldest civilization? The freaking Mayans? I know that this is just a big-budget CGI fantasy, but the level of cultural/historical cluelessness embodied in that tagline...well, the mind simply reels. The Maya are the world's oldest civilization like Justin Timberlake is the world's oldest man. Sheesh. despairingly,
Post #315,058 by boxley 10/5/09 12:03:38 PM Reply	they would have been the oldest civilization but the jews had to finish building the egyptian pyramids first
Post #315,061 by Andrew Grygus 10/5/09 12:23:30 PM Reply	Clever - but . . . . . the pyramids were built at least 1500 years before there were any Jews. They were also not built by slaves. They were giant WPA projects to keep the farmers busy during the months the Nile flooded their fields. "Bread, onions and all the beer you can drink in return for labor". As one archaeologist recently put it, "We knew beer was involved in building the pyramids, but we had no idea how much. There was a brewery on practically every block." As every enterprising homeowner knows, a case of free beer is the best way to get hard labor out of your friends.
Post #315,063 by drook 10/5/09 12:42:53 PM Reply	Nit-ish Back then, the beer was pretty thick, and the bread was most likely a kitchen accident, where some of the beer got into the crackers and puffed them up. Or at least that's the story (among many competing ones that I've seen) that I like best. -- Drew
Post #315,062 by rcareaga 10/5/09 12:25:30 PM Reply	Cough, Mesopotamia, cough, China... The precolumbian societies of the Americas were decidedly late to the party.
Post #315,081 by mhuber 10/5/09 2:45:43 PM Reply	Mom's a Maya scholar of sorts Goes to the conferences, translates the writing on artifacts. She pointed out to me that 2012 is the end of the Long Count calender cycle, not the end of the world. She described it as a major New Years kind of thing. No actual Maya documents call it the end of the world. Kind of like Y2K, except we were more worried than the Maya.

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