In the last few stories, one story interested me very much, so I recorded it, which was not only interesting, but also logical and scientific.
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Hero-God Man
Why is the protagonist of our story a god? Look at his resume, you will be surprised.
He used to be an ordinary civil servant. Later, when he came across an article about prehistoric remains, he decided to quit his job and concentrate on studying Mayan civilization.
After resigning, Ren Shen's savings became less and less. Without funds and contacts, he established a stable customer base with his own brochures. Within three years, he has subscribed to 240 customers, and the number is still rising. In return, the customer pays him 800 yuan RMB every year. Gao Ming calculated that in the past three years, almost the man of God earned more than 10,000 yuan a month without paying taxes.
What kind of brochure is so attractive? Every year, each customer will receive five copies, each with no less than 50,000 words. The content is about prehistoric civilization, both refining and integrating, as well as analyzing and speculating.
But finally, one day, the man of God became possessed and began to record some words that no one could understand in books, or draw some pictures that no one could understand. Even what he said to others is puzzling.
I don't think he is crazy, but possessed. A person, studying a certain field, is too persistent, either a genius or a madman.
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Historical Survey —— Language and Core of Mayan Civilization
The following knowledge comes from the theory of the man of God. Careful scrutiny, strict logic, but also interesting.
If you are an astronaut and arrive at other planets, and you find relics or ruins, how do you know and judge what kind of civilization this is?
Carved words and patterns left by architectural relics. For ordinary houses, there is not much value, and there is no carving of words or patterns. Therefore, it will only be found in memorial buildings. The purpose is to commemorate.
The protagonist takes Mayan culture as an example. At the beginning, Mayan cultural researchers thought that the core of Mayan civilization was the concern for time. In fact, the Mayans attached great importance to time, but it was not as serious as the researchers said. If the United States has declined now, most buildings have collapsed and weathered, leaving only the "World War II" monument. Then later researchers may mistakenly think that the core of American culture is war.
The disappearance of Mayan civilization. This is the topic that historians and archaeologists study the most, which can be roughly divided into two views: natural extinction and artificial obliteration. The protagonist believes that the Mayan civilization in South America was destroyed by Spanish colonists in the16th century, and Spanish missionaries also believe that Maya is the language of savage demons. So almost all Mayan bark books were burned, the Mayans were forced to learn Spanish, and the people who used Mayan language were also killed (this reminds me of China's version of burning books to bury Confucianism). As a result, Mayan civilization disappeared in that era.
Maya's discovery and speculation. /kloc-in the 0/8th century, Mayan buildings hidden in the rainforests of South America were rediscovered, and Mayan characters and murals carved on the buildings were also rediscovered. But at this time, no one can speak Mayan, and no one can read Mayan.
But our hero has a set of logic to analyze Maya by himself.
Maya is a hieroglyph, a part of semiotics, similar to Oracle Bone Inscriptions in China. If there are less than 40 basic symbols in a civilized writing, then the language represented by this writing is Pinyin language, which represents Latin system. If the basic symbol of a civilization is about 100, then this kind of writing is a syllable language, and its representative is Sanskrit (now it is also an illegible writing); If the basic symbols of a civilization are as high as thousands or even tens of thousands, then this kind of writing is ideographic, the basis of hieroglyphics, and the representative is Chinese characters.
Although the symbols known to Maya are less than 1000, there are ideographic characters in them. So what are the most representative words?
The most representative hieroglyphics are China numbers: one horizontal represents 1 and two horizontal represents 2. The numbers of Mayans are similar to those of China, with 1 minute representing 1, 2 minutes representing 2, and so on. No five points were found. But the simplest and most representative is the merger of five points arranged horizontally, so in Mayan language, a bar represents 5. A bar and a dot represent 6.
After recognizing these numbers, we can go on to learn the words before and after them. Generally speaking, it usually represents a date. Of course, the number of delegates is not excluded, but the number engraved on famous buildings should be to commemorate a great day.
The protagonist studies the written structure of the Mayans and infers the core culture of social civilization through the written structure.
The culture of pinyin and scale characters pays more attention to nature and humanity. Maya's composition is linear, but not one-dimensional or two-dimensional, but three-dimensional. One-dimensional characters such as "you" in English are arranged from left to right, and there is no distinction between up and down. Two-dimensional characters, such as "Guo" in Chinese, have up and down, left and right, which indicate both sound and meaning. Maya is a three-dimensional structure. Not just up and down, left and right, but also far and near. The reading order is "first up and then down, first left and then right, first near and then far". Although Maya is a hieroglyph, it seems that every word is a small square and a short sentence.
Therefore, the core of Mayan culture is art, which is the fusion of words and pictures.
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The Unbalance of Mayan Civilization —— Simple Expression and Complex "Billion"
By studying Mayan characters, the protagonist found that Mayan characters are expressed in language, which is a very simple and naive expression. For example: "I'm XXX, who are you?" I'm happy. Are you happy? "This expression is like a child's speech. If you just stay in oral English, that's fine, but written expression is somewhat naive.
This is somewhat contradictory to the Mayan civilization that began in BC and remained in the Stone Age thousands of years later. Maya had an accurate calendar and used to use the unit of quantity "100 million". In modern society, we use "billion" more frequently because money and finance are more developed. Then why did the Mayans use it frequently? As far as scientists know, they are purely used in astronomy, astronomical distances and calendars. Therefore, it is incredible that a civilization with complicated language and writing structure uses a large number of astronomical calendars, but uses very young expressions.
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The imbalance of Mayan civilization: doubt and thinking
First of all, the Mayans attached great importance to astronomy. First of all, the Mayans had specialized astronomical high priests, usually four (four, not one or two). Second, accurate calculation methods-20-digit counting method and astronomical calendar. The Mayans came to the conclusion that only modern science can prove the revolution and rotation of planets of the solar system, and they have been able to accurately predict the solar eclipse (there will be no scenes where explorers cheat the Mayans by using the solar eclipse in movies, such as the bridge in National Treasure).
Second, the Mayan civilization had a well-developed land transportation network, but it could not use wheels. At the same time, the smelting technology of Mayan civilization is very primitive, and there are no cold metal weapons. Mayan civilization was extremely enthusiastic about "sacrifice".
In short, "the social structure is primitive and simple, the life is backward, the expression is problematic, and the composition of words is complex, but they have highly developed astronomical knowledge, sacrificial worship, and suspicious parts of their lives, which seem to imply something" (quoting the author's brilliant words)
Guess: "There are developed social networks, but there are no wheels. Maybe you don't need wheels. The developed transportation network may be due to low-altitude suspended transportation; Without heavy metal weapons, there may be no need for cold weapons, because with more powerful weapons, cold weapons lose their value. The backwardness in life, enthusiasm for sacrifice and attention to astronomical calendar may be due to the fact that Maya civilization is an affiliated civilization under the guardianship of another civilization. They were only responsible for astronomy and art, and finally the patriarch civilization left, and the Mayans lost their suppliers, and finally they had to return to semi-primitive society. Therefore, the Mayans paid more attention to astronomy and astronomical distance units, and hoped that the ancestral civilization would return one day. " Although the author's guess is a bit wild and unconstrained, it is well founded, and it is a good idea to make a movie. The remains of history can no longer be verified. Maybe this is the result. Therefore, knowledge cannot be confined to civilization itself, and the unknown is more worth pursuing. )
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"Mayan Prophecy" —— A Lie of 2065438+02
About 20 12 is calculated from the Mayan calendar, and there are 260 days in a year instead of 365 days. So the Mayan calendar will be longer than the AD system. Moreover, Maya recorded that it would enter a new era, not destruction. There are many ways to enter the new era: rebuilding after destruction, not destroying positive progress, and actively abandoning old things to welcome new things. The protagonist thinks that the Mayan prophecy of 20 12 has been misunderstood or used by some people.
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Mathematics in Mayan ruins
If you find a relic, after careful excavation and measurement of the relic, you will get the approximate size of a building group, such as height, width, distance, distribution effect and so on. So you can have a preliminary judgment on the population based on these. If the building complex is found to be a square of 50,000 square meters, it can be inferred that there should be no less than 80,000 residents living around the core area.
Why? According to the per capita area of 1 m2, there are less than 50,000 people in the city square. Why is it so big? In fact, the real party members are less than 1 square meter, so the conservative estimate is 80,000. With this basic figure, the city needs sewage system, water supply system, medical system, entertainment facilities and so on. You will find that these systems also need people to maintain, so 80 thousand people may become 6.5438+10 thousand people.
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Sacrifice of Mayan civilization
Mayan sacrifice is actually an aristocratic act, and ordinary people have not had a chance to sacrifice. The coronation sacrifice of the new king can be a prisoner, but it must be of noble blood born for God. For example, in many inscriptions of Mayan culture, it is recorded that nobles cut off their tongues or pierced their arms, then tied ropes, introduced blood into special sacrificial containers, dipped paper in blood and burned it. This is purely aristocratic, and ordinary people do not have this right. What seems horrible and cruel in our modern society may be an honor in Mayan society. Similarly, in Nordic culture, women voluntarily bury dead men. For those women, burial is the supreme honor.
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Maya "rocket"
The hero thinks it is not a rocket in the modern sense. The reasons are as follows: First of all, this sculpture is on a sarcophagus, which may be carved by people or gods in the sarcophagus. Secondly, the words around the sarcophagus show that after the death of the people in the sarcophagus, the soul is separated from the grave, thus ascending to heaven. So in people's eyes, the base of the rocket is actually a sarcophagus and a grave, and the surrounding lace is actually an ornament. The words in the tomb also show that the owner of the sarcophagus is the shield king. What we call "joystick" is actually the weapon of King Shield, Mayan inscription and family badge. As for the front of the rocket, it is a pillar, and the top is decorated with leaves and feathers. The most interesting thing is that what many people regard as a telescope is actually an ornament on the nose of King Shield (confirmed by the relics unearthed by King Shield).
But there were flying machines in Mayan civilization. These aircraft have dashboards, nozzles and joysticks, but no wheels. For this, the hero can't explain and dare not make arbitrary judgments.
Note: The information comes from Gao Ming's book Genius on the Left and Madman on the Right, pages 289-306.