A good place to research ancient writing is Ancient Scripts.

Here are some links to Websites where you can translate ancient languages:

The Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary Project

Dictionary of Mayan Hieroglyphs

Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyph Translator

The Calendar That Ends

Most calendars have a start date - the day people begin to record their history. The Mayan Long Count Calendar of the Ancient Maya starts in August 3114BC.

And ends on 22 Dec 2012.

What will happen on that date? What did the ancient Maya know that we don’t?

Our Top Five Doom 2012 Theories

1. The Asteroid of 2012

An asteroid crashing into the ocean near the Yucatan Peninsula is thought to have caused the exinction event that killed the dinosaurs. There’s no doubt that if a very big asteroid crashed into the Earth, the climate would be severely affected. There could be famine and drought on an unimaginable scale.

Are any big, bad asteroids or even a comet headed our way?

Some think that the mysterious Planet X - or Niburu - is on a collision course with the planet.

And people who believe that there are coded messages from the future hidden in the bible have spotted a prediction that a comet will hit the Earth in 2012.

2. The Galactic Superwave

Physicist and archaeoastronomer Paul LaViolette has written of the potential for a volley or ’superwave’ of gamma ray energy that could be released from explosions in the Galactic Core.

This type of energy would have grave consquences for all living creatures on Earth.

And according to Dr. LaViolette, it has happened before.

“Employing sophisticated cryptographic puzzle techniques similar to those modern astronomers use in designing extraterrestrial communications, they created a time capsule message that described the elusive celestial cause of this tragic disaster, alerting us that it could recur at long intervals and arrive at Earth’s doorstep virtually without warning.”

(source etheric.com/)

3. Reversal of the Earth’s Magnetic Poles

The Earth’s core is made of molten iron. Iron is magnetic, and the Earth behaves like a giant magnet. Every so often, for reasons that aren’t fully understood, the poles reverse. The North pole becomes South.

Some people believe that the next pole reversal will take place in 2012.

No-one is sure what the effect will be on the human population. There may be no obvious effect. Or the change might be catastrophic.

In a book entitled “The Orion Prophecy” Patrick Geryl explores the idea that the poles will reverse in 2012 and that furthermore, the Ancient Maya and Egyptians knew about it and predicted the event in their writings.

4. A Supervolcano Explodes

Volcanoes are mountains that are created when an underground pool of magma erupted and explodes out of the Earth’s crust.

There are volcanoes…and then there are calderas.

In caldera, the pool of underground magma is so huge it’s like a lake. When a caldera explodes the crater is so large that you can fit whole towns inside the crater.

Geologists think that the last caldera explosion was in Sumatra, 74,000 years ago. The crater is now Lake Toba. There is also evidence from the human genetic record that around that time the human population was reduced to only 15,000 people.

Did the caldera under Lake Toba explode and almost wipe out the human race 74,000 years ago?

Geologists believe that there are cycles of caldera explosions. By some predictions the next one is due around 2012.

Could it happen again?

5. Galactic Alignment

The final theory is not one of doom and gloom, but of hope for a rebirth in human consciousness.

John Major Jenkins is a researcher who has studied the Mayan calendar and Mayan writings. He has written that Mayan mythology predicts that the Milky Way galaxy will reach a special alignment on 21 Dec 2012.

“The December solstice sun shifts along the constellations very slowly, and for thousands of years it has been proceeding backwards through the sidereal constellations of Aquarius, Capricorn, and into Sagittarius. The Milky Way crosses through the zodiac in early Sagittarius, forming the Maya Sacred Tree or “crossroads” in the sky. At some point in time, an era defined by the alignment of the December solstice sun and the Milky Way will occur. It is an astronomical fact that this alignment of the solstice sun and the Milky Way occurs in the years around 2012, and my theory begins with this clue to examine how the astronomical features involved in this “galactic alignment” are central to various Mesoamerican institutions, including the ballgame and the Hero Twin Creation Myth. “

Some believe that this new alignment of the galaxy will bring about a shift in human consciousness.

But what does that actually mean?

Telepathy, a rebirth in spirituality, people living a more simple, balanced life - all these have been spoken of.

Here at archaeologyconspiracies.com we really don’t know what to think. Except that we’re aware of the interest of shadowy groups like the Sect of Huracan in the 2012 mystery.

Do these groups have information that they aren’t sharing?

What will really happen in 2012? Who really knows…and what are they doing about it?

In Search of a ‘Fifth Codex’ of the Ancient Maya

by Mary Carmen Valencia* and Andres Garcia**

reproduced by permission @archaeologyconspiracies.com

*Department of Archaeology, Universidad IberoAmericana, Sante Fe, Mexico City, Mexico
**Department of Archaeology & Aquinas College, Oxford, UK

Ever since the discovery of the Grolier Codex in a cave in the 1970s, the world has been wondering. Could there be yet another lost Mayan codex?

Burning the Books

The story of the Mayan codices is a sad one. The only first culture to develop writing in the Americas, the Ancient Maya had written many bark-paper books, inscribed by hand in colour by the scribe class.

When the Spanish Conquistadors arrived in the 16th century, Bishop Diego de Landa ordered that all the Mayan writings be collected. He’d learned enough of their content to be convinced that the writings were blasphemous.

So he ordered that the inscriptions be burned. The leaders of the Maya people stood by and watched all their culture go up in flames. De Landa acted without permission. He was punished by his Abbot back in Spain.

But for Mayan writing it was too late. By the time the Spanish arrived, writing was already becoming a forgotten art.

Fourth Codices Saved

Much later, codices of the Maya began to turn up in old houses of European aristocrats. Not all the Spanish soldiers had obeyed De Landa’s order, it seemed. Some of them had kept the Mayan books and taken them back to Spain. Suddenly, these ancient writings were appearing in auction houses, where they were sold to libraries in Dresden, Madrid and Paris.

Then in the 1970s, a fragment of a codex - just 11 pages - came into the hands of one Joseph Saenz - under mysterious circumstances. Saenz would only say than that he’d been taken to a secret meeting place where he’d received the codex - allegedly found in a cave.

Right from the beginning the fourth codex divided Mayan scholars. Was it real? Or was it the cleverest hoax yet?

Sir J. Eric Thompson, the distinguished British Mayan archaeologist, was convinced that it was a fake. But after his death in 1975, opinion began to turn.

Now, the Grolier Codex is accepted as the fourth surviving codex of the ancient Maya. It is thought to date from the 13th century.

However, there MAY BE A FIFTH.

Rumours of a Fifth Codex

Recent discoveries in Calakmul, Mexico, have started a new rumour of another Mayan Codex. The authors spoke to one epigrapher who prefers to remain anomymous. She received a message offering to sell her some inscriptions taken from stelae stolen from Mayan ruins. The stelae were in now in the hands of ‘private collectors’ who had obtained them illegally. The epigrapher in question - one of the world’s experts on Mayan writing - was keen to see the inscriptions at least. She accepted the offer.

Our epigrapher friend was not allowed to take photographs or even a rubbing of the inscription. Here, however is her recollection:

“The stone came from a hieroglyphic staircase I suspect. It was similar to what I’ve seen from Dos Pilas. I was able to read the first part of the inscription very easily. It said something like this:

The Book of Ix was brought to Yuknoom Che’en. Many died, much pain. It was hidden, the forbidden text of Ix.

There was more, but I didn’t have time to see it. I think there may be another Mayan codex out there.”

The authors are well aware that rumour cannot be counted as evidence

And yet all ancient discovery begins somewhere - an unfounded rumour, whisperings of truth. Just as with John Lloyd Stephens hearing of the legendary Mayan ‘living city’ of white towers, which eventually led to the discovery of Tikal.

Perhaps this is the first hint of a fifth codex - the legendary Book of Ix.

Who Were the Anunnaki?

In the mythology of Ancient Mesopotamia the Annunaki are a group of Sumerian and Akkadian deities.

The Annunaki appear in a creation myth, Enuma Elish. Marduk, after the creation of mankind, divides the Anunnaki and assigns three hundred in heaven, three hundred on the earth.

When Do We First Hear This Story?

The Anunnaki are first mentioned in the ‘Atrahasis’, the original source of the story of the Great Flood. (The one in the biblical story of Noah’s Ark.)

The original clay tablets of the Atrahasis date back to 1700BC.  But parts of the same story have been found on even older tablets.  The Atrahasis is probably a retelling of an oral tradition - storytelling from person to person. So the story may well have been passed on for hundreds or even thousands of years.

When the gods instead of man
Did the work, bore the loads,
The Gods’ load was too great,
The work too hard, the trouble too much,
The great Anunnaki made the Igigi
Carry the workload sevenfold

This ancient text seems to say that the Anunnaki were of extra-terrestrial origin - creatures made by the gods, but not the same as human beings.

Gods and Goddess of the Anunnaki

An (god of heaven)
Ki (goddess of Earth, also known as Ninhursag)
Enlil (God of wind)
Enki (God of the watery abyss)
As well as being the names of deities, ‘An’ and ‘ki’ also refer to heaven and earth as places.

Sumerian Cuneiform Writing

‘An.un.na.ki’ can also mean as ‘those who came from Heaven and Earth’.

Writing has been invented only three times in human history. The Sumerians invented a way of writing by marking clay tablets with wedge-like inscriptions known as cuneiform.

Here is an.un.na.ki written in Sumerian cuneiform symbols:

Anunnaki Extraterrestials?

A Russian writer named Zecharia Sitchin translated many Sumerian writings about the Anunnaki. Sitchin’s theory is that the Anunnaki were not human, but a race of human-alien hybrids who were sent to help humans build a civilisation.

Whether or not you believe Sitchin, the timescales written about in ancient Sumerian writings are incredible. They speak of events in the far distant past.  As if civilisation was much older than we know. The Ancient Maya also write of events which seem to take place long before there would have been towns, buildings or writing.

For example, there is a very famous document known as the Sumerian King List - inscribed on the Weld-Blundell Prism, part of the collection at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.  It claims to list all the rulers since the beginning of time.  Here’s how it begins:
After the kingship descended from heaven, the kingship was in Eridu. In Eridu, Alulim became king; he ruled for 28800 years. Alaljar ruled for 36000 years. 2 kings; they ruled for 64800 years. Then Eridu fell and the kingship was taken to Bad-tibira.

Eridu refers to a place in modern-day Iraq known as Abu-Shahrain.

As for those ancient dates - maybe they are made-up or mis-remembered.

But it is also possible that they are true.

That human civilisation is far older than we believe. Could the rest also be true? Were the Anunnaki more than a story, a myth? Were they really sent to Earth by some other-worldly ‘Gods’? Were they helpers of men - or as Sitchin believes, were they our overlords?

If so…were did the Anunnaki go? Did some Anunnaki remain hidden amongst the human race? Are they The Watchers, as some believe, waiting to take over the world at a fateful moment in human history…perhaps 22 Dec 2012?

That is certainly what some believe.

The Anunnaki, the Reptilians, the Illuminati.

One and the same? And most important of all - friend or foe?