REPORT #81 June 1999
BELIZE MAYA HAVE OLDEST CALENDAR IN THE WORLD?


Produced by the Belize Development Trust
The YK2 problem and electronic computing, have raised the specter of trouble at the end of this year. Purists though say the new millennium will start January 1st., 2001, not at the end of this year.

But this calendar business is based on a minority Christian Calendar. Thus the world, over 70% of it, do not identify with this uniquely Christian pre-occupation. In China, next year will be 4698. In the Jewish places, the date will be 5760/61. In Islam the date is 1421. In India the date is 1922 for the Sakra Era. The Belizean Maya have the date from the old calendar at 9994, while if you calculate from this new Mayan calendar cycle the date is 4994.

It is the fact that electronics and computers and chips are an invention of the Christian countries. Small though their religion is by world standards, the dating they imposed on the electronic world was the Christian calendar and thus all the hooraah! Maybe we should insist in Belize that we use Mayan dating on imported computers? Our civilization is a lot older than these young ones.

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