The Oxford IX International Symposium on Archeoastronomy in Lima Peru- The Ancient Maya Agenda

I just returned from the Oxford IX Conference. It was truly an international affair with speakers from all parts of the globe (for agenda see: http://www1.archaeoastronomy.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=69&Itemid=60&lang=en ) presenting on how cultures both past and present integrated astronomical knowledge into their art, architecture, religion and daily life.

 The Maya session went very well and included the following speakers and titles:

Mark Van Stone- ´It’s not the End of the World': emic evidence for local diversity in the Maya Long Count

Carl Callaway- Cosmogony and prophecy: Maya Era Day cosmology in the context of the 2012 prophecy

John Carlson- Lord of the Maya Creations on his Jaguar throne: the eternal return of Elder Brother God L to preside over the 2012 transformation

Michael Grofe- Measuring Deep Time: the sidereal year and the tropical year in Maya Inscriptions

Barbara MacLeod- The God’s Grand Costume Ball: a Classic Maya prophecy for the close of the thirteenth Bak'tun

John W. Hoopes: “New Age Sympathies and Scholarly Complicities: A Critical History of 2012 Mythology.”

All papers held several new insights into the gods, events, and historical authors of the Tortuguero Monument 6 text that hosts the Maya 2012 prophecy.