Wednesday, May 11, 2016

The story “absurd” a young Quebecer who claims to have discovered a Mayan city – Le Monde

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This is not the Mayan city discovered by a  teenager, but a real temple of the archaeological  site of Tikal in Guatemala.

in recent days, the story of William Gadoury runs on many sites information (here, here, here or here at random) and French news programs, but also in the Anglo-Saxon press. William, a young man of 15 years passionate about stars, have discovered a previously unknown Mayan city through the constellations.

By studying “Astronomy of the Maya” , but also the location of the great cities of this civilization, comes the idea of ​​comparing the positions of stars with the geography of cities, whose remains are mostly located in Mexico, Guatemala and in Belize.

Journal of Montreal , tabloid Quebec, which was taken as the sole source of this wonderful discovery, says that the boy became ” a small launch to NASA, the Canadian Space Agency and the Japanese Space Agency “ by discovering, through a map of the constellations, it missing a city.

by comparing satellite images from space agencies and the star map, the young man found forms that could match the remains. A specialist in New Brunswick University Remote Sensing confirms the Journal of Montreal

“Geometric shapes like squares or rectangles, appeared on these images, forms that can hardly be attributed to natural phenomena. “

” An aberration “

The problem raised by Freeze frame, is that the details of the story changed a bit between the version of Journal of Montreal and the Libération says William Gadoury relied on European constellations, and not on Mayan constellations, which has much less meaning.

Screenshot of the website

an article in the Obs advanced skepticism of Internet users, which on Hoaxbuster forum where one of them says he did “found no scientific article on the subject and no mention on websites or forums archeology.” Le Journal de Montreal article accompanies a call for donations, the young scientist in need of $ 1 000 (680 euros) to finance his trip to Brazil, where he is invited to a international science Fair in 2017.

The young William said he had contacted the Mexican archaeologists, but these have not yet visited the site, and their name is not mentioned. In fact, namely experts present in the Journal of Montreal do not, a priori, archeology skills.

Stops on pictures has sought the advice of archaeologists. Marie-Charlotte Arnauld, emeritus director of research at CNRS and specialist in Mesoamerica, is categorical:

“The planning history of all cities based on constellations is an aberration. Constellations are cultural constructions (this is just to connect points), ours we come from the Greeks. “

Such planning in space implies that ” The cities were all founded and occupied at the same time. ” Now, the Mayan civilization was deployed on three millennia … short, especially a good way to “pick up $ 1 000″ , but no tangible scientific discovery to the key. A second archaeologist confirms and emphasizes the creation of a Wikipedia page rather provided, whose status is discussion , due to the possibility whether it a hoax . In fact, all the sources of the page are … articles taking the Journal of Montreal , and the school site where the boy is in school.



“There are Mayan sites everywhere, and stars also everywhere

Wired has attempted to verify the images submitted as evidence theory and to show them to an expert. The archaeologist Ivan Sprajc lean more to a cornfield abandoned and ” small dry lake as a Mayan pyramid. Gizmodo added to the file analysis David Stuart, Mayanist archaeologist of the University of Austin, Texas.



“I tried to ignore this false story. But now it is on the BBC website, I think it’s time I say something. “

Professor Stuart is concerned about these phenomena where” junk Internet meets science “ ” Find forms in the constellations, it’s a little Rorschach test, “ he says, referring to the psychological test that asks subjects to freely interpret shapes from stains symmetrical .

“There are Mayan sites everywhere, and also stars everywhere. The square shape is indeed the work of man, but this is an old cornfield (…). “

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