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Mayan End-of-World Carols
paulh, vaccinated against the Omigod Variant Started conversation Dec 14, 2012
This is the last solstice we ever shall see.
We hoped there'd be more, but our gods don't agree.
They sent us a drought, and it caused lots of pain,
And then we were conquered by armies from Spain.
Our temples of old in the sun brightly shone,
But now they lie hidden, by vines overgrown.
We learned a new language, embraced a new God,
Bought smartphones and ipods, and other things odd.
We're proud of our calendar. Long did it last.
It once showed the future. It now shows the past,
And when it runs out, it makes no sense to groan.
We hope that our conquerors make one of their own!
Mayan End-of-World Carols
ITIWBS Posted Dec 15, 2012
...just as surely as when the clock strikes 12:00pm (the witching hour), the new day begins, when winter solstice eve runs its course, the Mayan calendar starts over again...
The quetzal-totl bird, or calendar bird, protected since pre-Columbian antiquity has cry in which the the intricacies of the Maya calendar are encoded in the harmonics of its voice, a point borne out by the echo from the steps of the Maya temple of the Sun, which also code the intricacies of the Maya calendar, the echo when one claps one's hands or strikes a drum sounding like the voice of the quetzal-totl.
Its an effect I could reproduce well enough by means of timing the echoes from the steps, bu there is a catch to it, in order to pull the trick off, the Maya designers must have perfect pitch, solid mathematical skills, a good understanding of the theory of musical harmony, and they must also have known the speed of sound, which perhaps they learned by means of comparing signal times of telegraph systems using drums on the one hand and lights on the other.
http://www.google.com/imgres?q=quetzal-total,+sound+recording&hl=en&tbo=d&as_st=y&biw=1280&bih=652&tbm=isch&tbnid=eopRdSp2A5sDEM:&imgrefurl=http://nicabirds.blogspot.com/2010/12/resplendent-quetzal-at-el-columpio-yali.html&docid=wYxehh2SCPuLYM&imgurl=http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_77aXoNrJ6V8/TPb8GAFgJLI/AAAAAAAAFBo/ZkySkobdAOg/s1600/Female%252BPharomachrus%252Bmocinno%252BYali.JPG&w=1080&h=1082&ei=YOjLUJzqDorsiQLL-4DYCw&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=4&vpy=164&dur=2142&hovh=225&hovw=224&tx=83&ty=131&sig=109754246384026287231&page=1&tbnh=135&tbnw=143&start=0&ndsp=22&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0,i:92
http://www.google.com/imgres?q=quetzal-total,+sound+recording&hl=en&tbo=d&as_st=y&biw=1280&bih=652&tbm=isch&tbnid=9TqdRdICO2KAHM:&imgrefurl=http://murfswildlife.blogspot.com/2012_02_01_archive.html&docid=rO5A7lDhmB0l_M&imgurl=http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Bf78EnocRSM/T0lufqg6QGI/AAAAAAAABzk/_Y11lXuXmHc/s640/QuetzalCostaJM.jpg&w=511&h=640&ei=YOjLUJzqDorsiQLL-4DYCw&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=760&vpy=151&dur=1121&hovh=251&hovw=201&tx=92&ty=124&sig=109754246384026287231&page=1&tbnh=135&tbnw=112&start=0&ndsp=22&ved=1t:429,r:4,s:0,i:104
http://www.ocasa.org/MayanPyramid.htm
The effect of the echo from the steps of the pyrimid depends on the fact that it takes sound long to reach the more distant steps and takes more time for the echo to return from them than from the nearer steps.
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Mayan End-of-World Carols
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