Page 41 - 20120708 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - July / August 2012

Bolivia Bans Coke Due to Mayan Calendar Coca-Cola ban in Bolivia Archaeologists Discover Saturno’s Study Abroad students, wandered on due to end of Mayan Oldest Maya Calendars a lunch break into a tunnel dug by looters, where he found a red line on a stucco wall, so calendar faint he could barely make it out. It was the edge Skeletal remains found at site of large mural that may depict the people whose remains were found by Rossi. Alaska Dispatch add to mystery “If you look at the figures in the mural,” says Rossi, “almost every one is wearing two Want an ice-cold Coca-Cola in Bolivia? Too (E';1.D pendants—one in their headdress, one in their bad. necklace. The person whose remains were Oh, and you can blame the soon-to-be- recently unearthed is also wearing these two ending "fourth world," as told by the Mayan ceramic pendants, and one has a hole in it like it calendar. Seriously. would have been on a necklace. That’s why the The Bolivian government has decided to find is a really big deal. We may actually have ban Coca-Cola products from its borders, found one of the mural’s creators.” claiming the small South American nation will The focus of the dig is a room roughly put an end to American-style capitalism when the size of a walk-in closet. The north wall is the ancient calendar sees its last day, reported decorated with a mural with a seated king RT News. holding a scepter and wearing blue feathers. The Forbes reported that Bolivian Minister west wall is dominated by three black human of External Affairs David Choquehuanca wants figures and millimeter-thick black and red to boot Coke to start a new "culture of life in glyphs. The east wall has a seated figure painted community based socieites." in black, but also several mysterious Choquehuanca promoted the Night had fallen over the dense jungle hieroglyphic texts. These glyphs, which are consumption of local beverage Mocochinchi, a surrounding the ancient city of Xultún, unlike any at other Maya sites, appear to soft drink that is made from the juice of dried Guatemala, and Franco Rossi and Aviva represent the various calendric cycles charted peaches. Cormier were kneeling in a deep tunnel, by the Maya—the 260-day ceremonial calendar, As Forbes pointed out, the ban is extra brushing dirt from an ancient ceramic vessel the 365-day solar calendar, the 177 (or 178) ironic as Bolivia is the world's number three within what could be a tomb that had been lunar semester, the 584-day cycle of Venus, and producer of coca leaves, according to Reuters, found beneath the floor of a Maya ruin. the 780-day cycle of Mars. which is reportedly used to make the world- Rossi (GRS’15) used a fine brush to Saturno has since pioneered a way to dominating soft drink. gently remove dirt from the tombstone’s surface jigger a flatbed scanner to take 8½-by-11-inch Due to the coca leaf's rather obvious so they could eventually lift it, while Cormier pictures of the wall. On the fourth floor of the druggie implications, the Coca-Cola company (GRS’16) carried the dirt out of the narrow College of Arts & Sciences, his students can see prefers to neither confirm nor deny such rumors trench. That was when Rossi noticed it—a small things that weren’t visible back in Xultún. of its role in their recipe. According to fragment of a human skull beneath his brush. “We were only able to identify some of NaturalNews, Coca-Cola is one of the only “It was truly amazing,” he says. “Not the astronomical tables through the scan,” companies in the USA that's allowed to import only to uncover the ancient remains within this Saturno says. “Much of the paint wasn’t in a the leaves, which were used as a painkiller and tomb, but to actually find what you had hoped condition that we could identify it. Only traditional medicine for millennia in the Andes would be there all along.” through examining and processing the scans, mountains. In all, the excavation by a team of and changing the red writing to black, did we Don't get excited, however: although archaeologists led by William Saturno, a see more numbers.” there was indeed cocaine in the original Coca- College of Arts and Sciences assistant professor Saturno and Rossi are persuaded that the Cola recipe, in the current incarnation, coca is of archaeology, revealed the skeletal remains of calculations put an end to the “doomsday used only as a flavor extract, says Good six people who researchers believe lived during myth”—the belief that the Maya predicted the Business. the Classic period of ancient Maya civilization, world would end in 2012. The impending end of the current between 250 and 950 A.D. More important, “People love world ending scenarios,” Mayan calendar is slated for December 21, and members of the team suspect that the remains says Rossi, who with Cormier continues work has prompted much international sturm und are linked to figures depicted in a mural just a on the human remains. “After this one, there’s drang, though it's worth pointing out a recent few feet away. Saturno found that mural two going to be another one. It’s just what people archeological discovery extended the calendar years ago, along with a strange and unique do.” [] considerably, as GlobalPost reported. (But series of calendric calculations, in what he everyone loves a good imminent apocalypse!) believes was the workplace of a Maya scribe. Although Bolivia's leaders are Those findings were published last spring in News of the Weird attempting to dump Coca-Cola, they appear to Science and National Geographic. have no such qualms about coca leaves: in “We have this bizarre little room with Bright Ideas March, President Evo Morales defended notations in it, and we believe it’s part of a Bolivians' right to chew coca leaves to Reuters, residential complex,” says Saturno, director of claiming growers are not merely drug the BU Study Abroad Guatemala Archaeology Rhesus monkeys have always posed delicate traffickers. Program. “We’re looking at Maya scholars and problems in India, where they are both revered The 1961 UN Single Convention on scribes as they figured out their place in the (by Hindu law) and despised (for damaging Narcotic Drugs declared the humble coca leaf universe. We can look at the history of science property and roaming the streets begging for an illegal narcotic, in the same category as such in the New World in a way that we couldn’t food). In Delhi, the rhesus population has grown notables as heroin, opium, morphine, and before. I feel like I can get into the head of these dramatically, aided by the Hindus who feed cocaine. [] incredible scholars and ancient society.” them, and streets and private property are Saturno is famous among Central increasingly fouled. However, Amar Singh's The ‘X’ Zone Radio American archaeologists as the lucky finder of business is good. He owns 65 langurs (apes Show 2 of the 10 to 15 Maya murals known to exist. much more vicious than rhesus monkeys) and, with In March 2010, he led a team of BU for the equivalent of about $200 per month, ROB McCONNELL archaeologists to Xultún, one of the largest and periodically brings one or two by a client's xzoneradiotv.com least explored of Maya centers. The six-square- house to urinate in the yard so that the rhesus ARCHIVES mile area is believed to have been home at one monkeys will steer clear. [New York Times, 5- xzonepodcast.com time to tens of thousands of people. Maxwell 23-2012] [] Chamberlain (CAS’11, GRS’12), one of