People think that the Mayans might have created QR codes thousands of years before we could even scan them.

The theory came after footage surfaced of a supposed Mayan statue that looks like it’s straight off the set of Black Mirror.

So, was the ancient civilization way ahead of the tech game, or is the statue not legit?

Well, content creators low and high have shared their thoughts on the statue and its origin, with one YouTube channel, Meeko TV claiming that the statue was found in Mayan ruins.

The channel purported that the artefact was uncovered amid explorations of Mayan ruins, with the aim of better understanding how the ancient civilisation lived.

They went on to add: “Experts have already proven that it hasn’t been meddled with and that this is a real ancient artefact that the Mayans used to pray to.”

And while we were on board with what the content creators were saying, they lost us a bit with their next claim: “There are a lot of experts out there that believe that this is actually meant to be a message from aliens all along, one that has been passed down to the Mayans only for us to come across it eventually.”

Yep, aliens planted a QR code statue for us to scan – we tried scanning it, but it doesn’t work, just to save you some time.

Still, we do agree that “The resemblance [to a QR code] is uncanny, as you can even see the four squares on each corner and the writing in the middle which is supposed to take us to the link that it belongs to.”

The channel then speculated what the statue might mean, saying: “Could it be some sort of a warning? Many believe so as the Mayans were very popular for their incredible predictions of disasters.”

Other’s similarly speculated about the statue in the comments section with one user saying: “Well obviously they can’t be bothered to write down the link and then have to type it in every time.”

While another claimed: “it got me Dominos pizza discount,” and honestly we wish it did.

Of course, it’s not the first time the ‘ancient’ artefact has been studied, and one savvy detective at Metabunk.org suggested ‘statue was just part of some museum exhibit’ sponsored by an electronics retailer as, when the QR code was transcribed into machine readable format, it linked to ‘Altech Mexico’.

What do you think about the statue? Proof of an ancient Tesco? Or a fake made in one of those pottery and wine classes everyone’s heading to. Or just some clever marketing by an electronic retailer…