The earliest known Mayan calendar has been found in an ancient house in Guatemala, yet offers no hint that the world's end is imminent, AFP reported.

The painted room in the residential complex at Xultun was likely the place where the town kept its written records, scrawling computations on the walls in an effort to find "harmony between heavenly events and sacred rituals," said the study in Science journal.

The hieroglyphs date back to the ninth century, making them hundreds of years older than the calendars in the Maya Codices, which were recorded in bark-paper books from 1300 to 1521.

(China.org.cn, CNTV May 14, 2012)

據法新社報道，目前已知最早的瑪雅歷法在危地馬拉的一所古代房屋中被發現，但該歷法未提及世界末日即將到來。

房屋位于蘇爾頓，內部充滿繪畫。《科學》期刊發表的研究結果顯示，這里看起來像是古鎮保存文字記錄的地方，瑪雅人在墻上涂滿了計算結果，旨在達到“天象事件和神圣祭祀之間的和諧”。

這些象形文字可追溯至公元9世紀，比起“瑪雅抄本”提前了幾百年，后者在樹皮紙上記錄了1300至1521的歷法。