2012 And All That – Part Two
The “Long Count” calendar of the Maya was constructed according to an escalating number of chronological units. So, for example, a single day was referred to as one K’in, and 20 days as one Winal. Carrying on from there, 360 days made up one Tun, 7,200 days one K’atun, and 144,000 days one B’aktun. But the Long Count calendar was not designed to end at that point. It made provision for yet higher multiples of time, such as the Piktun, Kalabtun, K’inchiltun and the Alautun.
As we have seen in the previous instalment, the Maya believed that their Gods had created four previous ages, or worlds, and that we are currently living in the fifth world. According to Mayan creation tradition, their fourth age ended after a period of exactly thirteen B’aktuns (about 5,125 years). The new (fifth) age began, according to the Long Count calendar, on August 11, 3114 BC.
Now it just so happens that the anniversary of the end of the fourth Maya age falls on December 21, 2012. This represents a span of time exactly thirteen B’aktuns after the beginning of the fifth age. And this is where the sad saga of 2012 begins, for various Western writers have seized upon this date as conveniently fitting in with their various “end of the world” scenarios. Yet they have forgotten one thing.
They have forgotten that there is no record that the Maya believed that their fifth world would end after precisely thirteen B’aktuns. As was pointed out in the previous instalment, the Maya of today attach no special meaning to the end of the thirteenth B’aktun, especially since the Long Count calendar has ceased to be in common usage for some eleven hundred years. So December 21, 2012 would be followed by December 22, 2012, with no special fanfare or significance.
The classic Maya (of around 900 AD) expected that the end of the thirteenth B’aktun would be followed by the beginning of the fourteenth B’aktun, and that the new B’aktun would follow in sequence just as the previous B’aktun had followed the one before. We know this because Mayan stelae (stone carvings) such as those found on the west panel at the Temple of Inscriptions in Palenque have been found with calendar dates far in excess of the 2012 ending of the thirteenth B’aktun.
But although the Maya themselves attached no special prophetic meaning to the year 2012, that has not stopped a host of other proselytes from linking it with a rash of predictions of their own.
In 1975 the American author Frank Waters published a book entitled Mexico Mystique: The Coming Sixth Age of Consciousness. In this book Waters suggested that “the end of the Mayan Long Count cycle” would coincide with a shift in the global consciousness of humanity. This was an idea that found an echo in the works of such writers as Jose Arguellas (The Transformative Vision) and Terence McKenna (The Invisible Landscape). All of these authors are now deceased.
Another American author, by the name of John Major Jenkins, has attracted a vast following as a result of a series of books he has published linking the year 2012 to a unique astronomical alignment. In these books Jenkins has advanced the view that the Maya intended to end their Long Count calendar on December 21, 2012, because this would be the day that the earth would be at a point in space which Jenkins called the “Galactic Alignment”.
According to Jenkins, this would be the date when the Sun and the planets would be precisely aligned with the galactic equator. He also went on to claim that as a result of their shamanistic insights gained as a result of the ingestion of hallucinogenic plants, the Maya anticipated this conjunction and predicted that it would lead to a profound spiritual awakening of mankind.
Critics of Jenkins have argued that the galactic equator is an entirely arbitrary line that can never be precisely drawn because it is impossible to determine the exact boundaries of the Milky Way. In any event, using the calculations for the line of the galactic equator which Jenkins himself had employed, scientists found that the most precise convergence with the center of the Sun had already occurred in 1998.
Furthermore, Maya scholars contend that there is little evidence, archaeological or historical, that the Maya placed any importance on the Milky Way, especially since there is no glyph in their writing system to represent it, and no astronomical or chronological table that is linked to it. So the precise reference by Jenkins to the winter solstice in 2012 seems to them to be arbitrarily contrived.
The year 2012 has also been linked with numerous other astronomical events, including threats of solar flares and CMEs (Coronal Mass Ejections) from the Sun. This idea has also been burned into public awareness through the release of such movies as the 2009 science fiction film “Knowing” starring Nicolas Cage, as well as the Box-office hit “2012” which included references to Mayanism and the Long Count calendar.
Scientists have long known that the Sun has a cycle of sunspots that last about eleven years. During this period solar sunspots vary, as do the number and size of flares and coronal emissions associated with this activity. But because the Sun is believed to be due to reach a maximum (solar max) in its 11 year cycle around the years 2011 or 2012, certain sensationalist writers have suggested that the earth will be exposed to life-threatening solar flares at the time of the winter solstice in 2012.
While our Sun is unpredictable and can certainly eject a massive burst of radiation towards the earth at any time, regardless of the sunspot cycle, it is worth remembering that that periods of intense solar radiation have occurred on numerous occasions in the past, without this being a threat to the existence of humanity. The annual threat from solar activity to people on earth is very small, and the worst that can generally happen is a disruption in power or communications.
Although the various predictions associated with the year 2012 may make gripping reading, and conjure up sensational scenarios of spiritual enlightenment or impending doom, they are invariably based on flimsy logic and slipshod research. One can safely conclude that none of these sombre pronouncements are likely to be realized in the coming year. Certainly, none of them can be attributed to the Maya or their calendar.
That is because the fundamental unit of the Long Count calendar was the Tun. But as explained above, one Tun was equal to 360 days. It does not seem to have crossed the minds of modern Mayan commentators and scholars to ask the question why a culture that has come to be recognized as the most accurate astronomical observers of the night sky, should have picked a cycle of days that bears no relevance to our present scientific knowledge.
The answer to this enigma will be explained in the following instalment.
