How come nobody ever goes on about the British prediction about the end of the world?

[salvorhardin]

Last night I watched the Time Team special about Westminster Abbey where they talked at great length about how the British monarchy is so intimately tied up with religious woo (the king or queen is actually thought to take on special powers when anointed by the sacred oil during coronation) but they also had an extended segment about the cosmati pavement in the abbey of which I wasn't aware.

Apparently, there's a cryptic inscription in the pavement that predicts that the world will end in 19,683 years. I'm not sure if that's 19,683 years after 1,272 (when King Henry died, whom was responsible for turning the abbey into a tribute to the British monarchy and their god given right to rule) or 19,683 years after Christ. Hard to tell. It wouldn't be cryptic if it gave an exact date. Bonus points though for the bizarre numbering system given as orders of three based on the lifespan of various species! Much better than that boring old Mayan prophecy.

The design consists of a broad border with a rectangle in the middle of each side and five roundels between each rectangle. The border encloses another square set transversely with its corners pointing north, south, east and west. Between the inner border and the transverse square are four triangular spaces occupied by large roundels. Within the transverse square is a pattern known as a quincunx, with a large roundel in the very centre flanked by four roundels as if in orbit around the centre. The basic layout is a four-fold symmetry, but in detail the variations are endless. No two roundels are the same. Of the four ‘orbiting’ roundels one is circular, one hexagonal, one heptagonal and one octagonal. The infill patterns are all different. The three damaged inscriptions, formed of brass letters, refer to the end of the world, calculating that it will last for 19,683 years (Italian Cosmati pavements do not have inscriptions). They were copied in the 15th century by the Abbey chronicler John Flete. The Latin inscriptions can be translated as:

In the year of Christ one thousand two hundred and twelve plus sixty minus four, the third King Henry, the city, Odoricus and the abbot put these porphyry stones together.

If the reader wisely considers all that is laid down, he will find here the end of the primum mobile; a hedge (lives for) three years, add dogs and horses and men, stags and ravens, eagles, enormous whales, the world: each one following triples the years of the one before.

The spherical globe here shows the archetypal macrocosm.

Why was the year 1268 expressed in such a roundabout fashion? It is usually suggested that 1212 plus 60 equals 1272, the date of Henry III’s death, and 60 minus 4 equals 56, the length of his reign. It would seem therefore that the inscriptions were added shortly after his death. The abbot mentioned was Richard de Ware, who was buried beneath the pavement. Richard Sporley, a medieval monk of Westminster, wrote “The primum mobile means this world, whose age or ending the writer estimates, as he imagines it, by increasing the numbers three-fold”. So a hedge lives three years, a dog nine, a horse twenty seven, a man eighty one and so on. The final date is calculated by a chronology based on the mythical life-spans of animals. And he explains that the macrocosm is “the great world in which we live”, the microcosm being man. The ‘spherical globe’, he says, is “the round stone, having in itself the colours of the four elements, fire, air, water and earth”. According to the only medieval interpretation we have, the pavement thus symbolises the world, or the universe, and its end.
http://www.westminster-abbey.org/our-history/art/cosmati-pavement

The cosmati pavement is undergoing restoration after having been covered by horrid carpet for who knows how long. It's incredibly beautiful, and I'd love to see it in person some time.

[mr blur]

1. You get Time Team over there?

We actually export that annoying little god-bothering twat Tony Robinson? Don't you just want to punch him in the face every time you see him?

Anyway, I've never heard of the cosmati pavement either, though I must have walked over it. I didn't realise that we Brits went in for predicting The End - seems a very un-British thing to do really - we're more:

[LeftishBrit]

3. Well, if it's not going to end for 19,683 years...

or even 17,673 years if calculated from the (supposed date of) birth of Christ, then we might as well keep calm and carry on!

I'm reminded of the old story of the astronomer who was giving a public lecture, and was asked by a very anxious audience member, "When did you say that the world is expected to end?" "In about fifty billion years." "Thank God!" exclaimed the audience member; "I thought you said only *fifteen* billion years!"

I do love the precision of 19683 years - not anything so vague as 'about 19700 years' - especially given the lack of precision about the starting date.

[salvorhardin]

6. Yes!

We'll pick arbitrary powers of three based on the rough lifespan (give or take a few years) of various species that are well known to us (including sea monsters!) and multiply them all together until we have an astoundingly precise number which is still worthless because we never say when the start of the world was. It's like something out of Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.

[semillama]

4. yeah, it gets shown on things like the History channel sometimes

We had our own home grown Time Team a couple years ago, but it never developed into a recurring series, sadly. Pretty cool show (both of them)!

[salvorhardin]

5. I download Time Team

Apparently there's an American version now too but I've never seen it so I don't know how it is. I think The Discovery Channel may show the British Time Team in reruns too because sometimes there's a Discovery bug in the corner of the screen.

I guess I never knew until last night that Tony Robinson was religious at all but he was absolutely gushing about all the religious imagery. Is he really that much of a god botherer though? He really seemed to be laughing about how Henry concocted the stories about Edward the Confessor's miraculous healing powers and how Edward was initially the patron saint of England but he was too boring of a saint for the people to rally behind so they came up with the idea of George the Action Saint and Edward was demoted to just being the patron saint of the royals (although people still seem to make pilgrimages to his tomb, presumably to be healed).

I really enjoyed the show. The cosmati pavement aside, I learned a lot. I always knew the King or Queen was supposed to be ordained by god, but who knew they had superpowers? Or that statues and memorial plaques in the abbey keep getting shuffled around depending on who's popular or not and now we have no way of knowing who's buried there or not, or even where they're buried. The show did feature one good Time Team trope. They broke out the ground penetrating radar to image the graves.

Overall, I quite like Time Team. I've been watching it on and off for years and while sometimes I think they speculate a little wildly, that doesn't bother me too much. It's archaeology-lite. One of the things that's most endearing about the show to me, not counting the Aussie Hagrid look-a-like digger, is that they're often looking at the little things like how people lived their everyday lives. In some ways that stuff's more fascinating to me than the big historical finds.

[muriel_volestrangler]

11. The belief in royal magic lasted until the 18th century

This coin was pierced so that it could be used in the ceremony of 'touching for the King's Evil'. It was believed that the skin disease scrofula could be cured by the touch of the king, and thus it was also called the King's Evil. Sufferers of the disease who were touched by the king were presented with a gold angel to hang around their neck, as an amulet to reinforce the cure.

One of the last people to be touched for the King's Evil was Dr. Samuel Johnson, one of the greatest literary figures of the eighteenth century, who was touched by Queen Anne (1702-1714). The first Hanoverian monarch, George I (1714-1727), abandoned the practice, which was regarded as superstitious.

http://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/dept/coins/exhibitions/CoinOfTheMoment/angel/

(It should be said that Johnson was about 3 at the time - it wasn't his decision to get touched)

[salvorhardin]

12. On the show though

They were going on, especially the priest they were talking to, as if they still believed the sacred oil transformed the monarch.

I don't think Tony Robinson believed that, but toward the end they did explore the issue somewhat since old Elizabeth probably won't be hanging on much longer and there'll be a new coronation ceremony. They wondered if modern, secular Britain would accept the old traditional ceremony as rooted in superstition as it was, or if there might be calls for the ceremony to be modernized.

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. Who knows? Charlie may want to introduce some other superstititions

Replace the 'holy oil' with deadly nightshade juice diluted 10^30 times or something ...

I didn't see the programme; I was unaware until now that Robinson was keen on religion (I thought he was just political; he was on Labour's National Executive Committee at one stage). He's done a programme or two on Dan Brown books, and basically seemed to be laughing at it all.

[salvorhardin]

14. I don't think he is terribly

I don't think he is terribly religious, at least not in the U.S. fundie literal-word way. I did get the impression that he respects the religious tradition and sees it as social glue, and he did seem to be gushing over all the imagery but then so would I. Like I said (and you just now) though, he seemed to be laughing at the superstitious stuff. mr. blur was the one who said he was a "god bothering twit" so maybe he'll elaborate later.

Re: Charles. I sincerely hope you don't have to suffer his idiocy as King. Thankfully the monarchy doesn't have any real power any more so he won't end up being like a dangerously credulous left version of Thatcher. Still, given the visibility of that position, he could still do a lot of damage.

[Codeine]

9. Baldrick is a Jesus Freak?

That's a disappointment.

[lazarus]

2. that is ultra neat

thanks for posting this. We'll definitely go see this when we (finally) go to the UK in a couple of years.

[salvorhardin]

7. One of the neat facts that was mentioned...

All of the tesserae were created to order in Italy (oddly, a lot of the art work in the abbey was done by Italians) and then shipped over to England in bags where it was then assembled. The whole floor was only supposed to have taken a year!

Oh, and then there was the coronation chair. I was completely astounded to see that it was literally covered in graffiti as people carved their names on it over the centuries. I would have thought the coronation chair would have been one of the most closely guarded artifacts in the abbey and no mere mortal could come within an arm's length of it, much less have time enough to carve his or her name!

[Codeine]

8. Western apocalypses don't have that New Age cachet.

Work in some references to The Goddess and patriarchy, sprinkle liberally with Campbell and Gimbutas, dredge it all in a bit of mysticism and get back to me.

[salvorhardin]

10. But, but, but... it's based on astrology!

At least that's what I think the inscription means by "porphyry stones".

Porphyry

Each quadrant of the ecliptic is divided into three equal parts between the four angles. This is the oldest system of quadrant style house division. Although it is attributed to Porphyry of Tyros, this system was first described by the 2nd century astrologer Vettius Valens, in the 3rd book of his astrological compendium known as The Anthology.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_%28astrology%29#Porphyry

That seems to match the four patterns around the center sphere and the odd multiples of three thing in calculating how long the world would last, but I guess it could refer to porphyritic stones too since many of the tesserae do look like porphyritic granite
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porphyritic

[onager]

15. More about Woo-minster...

My favorite monument in Westminster Abbey is a slab dedicated to some Lord's equerry. (Horse-holder.) I forget the details, but I almost laughed out loud at the inscription, which went something like this: In memory of his Faithful Equerry, who at the Battle of Somethingorother, was most grievously wounded when a cannonball took off his head.

Talk about your traditional British understatement...

For some weird reason, the Coronation Stone (Stone of Scone) fascinates me.

Check out this ancient bit o'woo:

Walter Bower's 16th century chronicle Scotichronicon describes how Scota, a sister of an Egyptian Pharaoh, fled her family and landed in Scotland, bringing with her the Stone of Scone. According to the chronicle, Scotland was later named in her honour.

Jebus! Everybody drags in the Egyptians! (Or the Mayans!) Those poor people, in only five millenia, have been reduced from building the Pyramids to conducting fat-ass Western tourists around the Pyramids, while being lectured on how space aliens REALLY built them. Leave the Egyptians alone, dammit!

Oh, and the Egypto-woo was disproven long ago. The Coronation Stone is made of stuff locally quarried.

In 1296 the Stone was captured by Edward I as spoils of war and taken to Westminster Abbey, where it was fitted into a wooden chair, known as King Edward's Chair, on which most subsequent English sovereigns have been crowned.

Doubtless by this he intended to symbolise his claim to be "Lord Paramount" of Scotland with right to oversee its King. Underlining this symbolism, he once referred to the Stone contemptuously as a 'turd'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_of_Scone

[muriel_volestrangler]

16. First I've heard about the Scots having an Egyptian royal family origin; Scythia was official

back in the 14th century. This is the Declaration of Arbroath, a serious document sent to the Pope to get him to tell England to stop trying to take over Scotland, in 1320. And their claim of the origin of the Scots is:

Most Holy Father and Lord, we know and from the chronicles and books of the ancients we find that among other famous nations our own, the Scots, has been graced with widespread renown. They journeyed from Greater Scythia by way of the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Pillars of Hercules, and dwelt for a long course of time in Spain among the most savage tribes, but nowhere could they be subdued by any race, however barbarous. Thence they came, twelve hundred years after the people of Israel crossed the Red Sea, to their home in the west where they still live today. The Britons they first drove out, the Picts they utterly destroyed, and, even though very often assailed by the Norwegians, the Danes and the English, they took possession of that home with many victories and untold efforts; and, as the historians of old time bear witness, they have held it free of all bondage ever since.

http://www.constitution.org/scot/arbroath.htm

It's an interesting claim - it's not "we've been here forever, so it must be our country", it's not "God said we could have this land", and it's not "our forbears were the most famous empire or civilisation". It's more "we've been here quite a long time, and had to fight for it, how about we get to keep it?" And Scythians are a strange choice. I don't know where they pulled that from at all, beyond 'Scot' and 'Scyt' being pretty similar.

[LeftishBrit]

17. At Christmas, 1950, some Scottish Nationalist students stole the Stone of Scone

and brought it back to Scotland.

It was soon returned to Westminster, but there are still legends that the returned Stone may have been a copy rather than the original, and thus may lack the necessary magic power.

The following ballad was created to commemorate the occasion:

Wee Magic Stane

* (Trad / Johnny McAvoy)

The Dean o' Westminster was a powerful man
He held a' the strings o' the State in his hand
But wi' a' his great business it flustered him nane
When some rogues ran away wi' his wee magic stane
Wi' a too-ra-li-oo-ra-li-oo-ra-li-ay

The Stane had great powers that could dae sic a thing
That withoot it it seemed we'd be wantin' a king
So he sent for the polis and made this decree
Go hunt oot the Stone and return it tae me
Wi' a too-ra-li-oo-ra-li-oo-ra-li-ay

So the polis went beetlin' away up tae the North
They hunted the Clyde and they hunted the Forth
But the wild folk up yonder just kidded them a'
For they didnae believe it was magic at a'
Wi' a too-ra-li-oo-ra-li-oo-ra-li-ay

Noo the Provost o' Glesca, Sir Victor by name
Wis awfy put oot when he heard o' the Stane
So he offered the statues that stan' in George Square
That the High Church's masons might mak' a few mair
Wi' a too-ra-li-oo-ra-li-oo-ra-li-ay

When the Dean o' Westminster wi' this was acquaint
He sent for Sir Victor and made him a saint
But it's no good you sending your statues down heah
Said the Dean, But it gives me a jolly good ideah
Wi' a too-ra-li-oo-ra-li-oo-ra-li-ay

So they quarried a stane o' the very same stuff
And they dressed it all up till it looked like enough
Then he sent for the press and announced that the Stane
Had been found and returned tae Westminster again
Wi' a too-ra-li-oo-ra-li-oo-ra-li-ay

But the cream o' the joke still remains tae be telt
For the bloke that wis turnin' them aff on the belt
At the peak o' production was so sorely pressed
That the real yin got bunged in alang wi' the rest
Wi' a too-ra-li-oo-ra-li-oo-ra-li-ay

So if ever ye cam' on a stane wi' a ring
Just sit yersel' doon and proclaim yersel' king
There's nane will be able tae challenge yer claim
That ye've crooned yersel' King on the Destiny Stane
Wi' a too-ra-li-oo-ra-li-oo-ra-li-ay

(as sung by Robin Hall & Jimmy Macgregor)

[SheilaT]

18. That's so far out there,

no matter when the exact starting point is, that who's going to care?

Keep in mind that people only tend to get exercised about End of the World predictions pretty close to the predicted time. There were mutterings about Y2K some years out, but only around mid-1999 did anyone seem to care much, or start making ridiculous predictions about planes falling out of the sky. Same thing with 2012. The date is question has been known for sometime now, but even three or four years ago no one talked much about it.

It has nothing to do with validity, or even how strongly people believe, just how close the predicted date is.