Sunday, October 7, 2012

How to Make Your Own Predictions For The End of The World

An invaluable tool to invent your own apocalyptic predictions has come online, finally. With it, and a lot of creative invention, you’ll be able to concoct your own brand of doomsday scenario. Dresden State and University Library has been kind enough to publish it online. As far as vision and prophecy go, I have to admit, the original is not the most exciting bit about it.



Everybody knows that the world is going to end on the 21st of December, 2012. What? You don’t believe it? You haven’t yet spent every penny of your savings and took out more credits than you are able to repay in a lifetime? No wonder the world economy is going to pots. How can you ignore documentary proof that way? 


But even if you don’t want to share in all the fun of Endzeitstimmung, the date is an interesting one. It marks the moment when the Mayan Calendar will come full circle and restart at day one. I know, this is a disappointing sentence with no mention of end and doom and gloom. But there it is. To make it worse, there is only one document in the world that proves this (as near as anyone can tell). 


The proof lies in the Dresden State and University Library and is called, surprisingly, Codex Dresdensis. The 800 year old manuscript is the source of all the hype about December 21, 2012. That’s not too bad a claim to fame for a few drawings on a bit of fig bark paper. In total, there are 39 pages in the codex containing information about sicknesses, harvesting times, religious rituals, sacrifices, and astronomy important to the Maya priesthood. The mathematics of the calendar has been decoded in the 19th century by a Dresden librarian. 


The codex is one of several codices held in libraries. The others can be found in Madrid, Paris, and Mexico-City. The Dresden codex, though, is unique as it is the only one containing the astronomical information on the calendar, and a picture of natural calamity. The last picture in the codex shows a biblical flood together with gods and mythical beasts. From the snout of a sky dragon, masses of water fall down to earth. 


You might think that is scant proof for an apocalypse. Well yes, the less proof there is, the easier it is to invent something to fit your preconceptions. Look at the writings of Nostradamus; only the fact that they are gibberish makes them so interesting to self-proclaimed experts on prophecy. If someone comes right out and says it, there is small joy in prophecy, because come the date, they are either right or wrong, and that was it. I leave it to your imagination to decide how good the statistical chance for being right is. 


As the library in Dresden has been swamped with demands for information by scientists and freaks alike, they have scanned the whole codex and made it available on the internet. If you prefer to look at it in PDF format, they offer that, too. Both links can be found at the end of the article. If you want to see the full ‘apocalyptical’ scope of the Maya depiction, go there; I can tell you it is disappointing as a proof for the end of the world. 


But at least, the access to the document finally enables you to take your own shot and start sprouting gibberish all over the net. I hope you’ll have fun doing so.


Access to the University of Dresden library archives:
Codex Dresdensis Homepage

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