August 26th, 2010 by ejalbright The Maya glyph Xul (Wikimedia
Commons) Part of an occasional series on the interest in the end
of the Maya calendar on Dec. 21, 2012. In a region literally
surrounded by some of the most beautiful Maya ruins in the
world, a group of Italian citizens have established a small
enclave in the village of Xul where they intend to sit out the
apocalypse that some believe the ancient Maya predicted for Dec.
21, 2012. State and federal officials are studying the group,
just as anthropologists and archaeologists from around the world
have studied the Maya. Xul (pronounced “shool”) is a village in
the municipality of Oxkutzcab, some 65 kilometers south of
Yucatan’s capital, Merida, and some 95 kilometers southwest of
Chichen Itza. A short distance away are a string of exquisite
Maya ruins — Uxmal, Kabah, Sayil, Labna, and the Cavern of
Loltun, the so-called “Puuc route,” named after the style of
architecture found there. According to a report in the Mexican
journal Milenio, the foreigners