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2012 and the Mayan Doomsday Prophecies
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Previews for the 2012 movie release in November have been whipping up a fascinated (and potentially frightening) frenzy for some time now. Speaking this week to the Chicago Tribune, NASA scientist David Morrison commented,
“Two years ago, I got a question a week about it. Now I'm getting a dozen a day. Two teenagers said they didn't want to see the end of the world, so they were thinking of ending their lives."
Ann Martin, an astronomer at Cornell University, made a similar comment about the growing irrationality:
"It's too bad that we're getting e-mails from fourth-graders who are saying that they're too young to die. We had a mother of two young children who was afraid she wouldn't live to see them grow up.”
Are the 2012 doomsday prophecies for real or are they just one more footnote in a long list of end-of-world predictions that have plagued the scientific community for years? The number of stories have certainly grown and a sampling of breathless headlines includes:
• ABC News: Will the world end in 2012? Thousands worldwide prepare for the Apocalypse
• CNN.com: Apocalypse in 2012? Date spawns theories, film
• History Channel: Nostradamus 2012: What might happen on December 21, 2012?
• BBC news: Crop [circle] pattern sparks fresh debate
Even National Geographic has a website completely devoted to the end date countdown, offering a number of deliciously thrilling scenarios including, “Test your Armageddon I.Q.!!”
Truth?
Or good copy sell for a recession-bound industry?
Apolinario Chile Pixtun, a Mayan Indian elder, unequivocally states that 2012 is definitely not the end of the world. Instead, he says Western fixations have caused the idea to snowball into more than what it really is – one time period simply rolling over into another.
Dr. Vincent H. Malmstrom, a Professor Emeritus of Geography at Dartmouth College who has researched this phenomenon, is also puzzled as to, “why the Maya would have felt obliged to predict this particular event some 2367 years (or so) in advance?”
Dr. David Webster, professor of archeological anthropology at Penn State steps back for the wide angle approach, commenting:
“…the ancient Greeks or Romans or Chinese are a bit discouraging -- they are too well documented to allow free rein to our imaginations, and besides, one has to learn too much about them. On the other hand, the Classic Maya fit the bill perfectly – we know just enough to find them fascinating, but there are lots of blanks we can fill in to our own satisfaction.”
If all this is really not that different than a New Year’s Eve party, where did all this hype and panic come from?
For starters, how about the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar?
The Long Count calendar identifies a day by counting the number of days passed in a Grand Cycle since a mythical creation date of August 11, 3114 B.C., in the Gregorian calendar. A Grand Cycle consists of 13 baktuns, each of which numbers 144,000 days, making for a grand total 1,872,000 days. In turn, this equates to approximately 5,139.44 solar years, and marks the number of days that have elapsed since the supposed beginning of the present world, as determined by some unknown priest in the year 236 B.C.*
Ironically, the Long Count calendar is but just one of three Mayan calendars.
The other two are:
• The Tzolkin (divine calendar) that encompassed a combination of two week-long styles; a numbered 13-day week and a named 20-day week that resulted in a 260-day year.
• The Haab (civil calendar). A 365-day calendar that was divided up into 18 months of 20 days each, followed by 5 extra days. *
Apparently, neither of these two lend themselves quite as easily to the Western idea of end times.
According to the Long Count calendar, the next Grand Cycle is scheduled to end on or around December 21, 2012, triggering a shift to a higher order.
Just what kind of a higher order has been vigorously debated for some time.
References to the Tortuguero site glyphs that call for the ‘descent of the gods at the end of the 13th baktun’, while the Chilam Balam of Tizimin, writings representing Mayan thought prior to Spanish rule, are also frequently brought into the fray.
Ultimately, the Mayans themselves, never predicted the world was going to end, although Dr. Webster certainly has his own conclusions.
“The Maya, of course, would simply have begun another cycle, just as they did before, and their world would have gone on. Here’s my prediction: 2012 will come and go without the world falling apart (at least any faster than it is at present), and people will forget about this particular intrusion of the ancient Maya into our lives.”*
Sources:
• Malmstrom, Vincent H. Professor Emeritus: The Astronomical Insignificance of Maya Date 13.0.0.0
• The Mayan Calendar
• Webster, David, Ph.D.: The Uses and Abuses of the ancient Maya
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