So how then did the year 2012 come to be regarded as such a climactic date in prophecy? Most people today are aware that this date has something to do with the Maya, although very few have taken the trouble to investigate whether there is any credence to it all. For many people it is far easier to simply swallow the wild predictions\u00a0that now abound. And all of this will no doubt grow as the new year approaches.<\/p>\n
The Mayan civilization had its origin some 2,000 years before the birth of Christ. Over the years the Maya developed an advanced culture that spread over much of Meso-America, incorporating the modern countries of Guatamala, Belize, Honduras\u00a0and El Salvador, as well as the Yucatan peninsula and the highlands of Mexico. Modern scholars consider that the Mayan cities\u00a0reached their\u00a0highest state of development\u00a0during the “classic” period, from the years 250 to 900 AD.<\/p>\n
What distinguished the Maya from other pre-Columbian societies was that they had a sophisticated system of writing, as well as a unique system for measuring time. Just like the\u00a0modern calendar we use today in the West, they had a system which recorded the length of the year, as well as a linear system which measured longer periods of time. For this reason the linear system has come to be called the “Long Count” calendar.<\/p>\n
The Long Count calendar of the Maya was open-ended. That meant that, while they measured time by means of an ever increasing system of chronological units, there was no\u00a0“end date” to the calendar itself.\u00a0So just as we can set a date for a time far in advance of our own time (eg 2610 AD), so too could the Maya. But what was significant about their Long Count calendar\u00a0was that it began on a specific date. That date was August 11, 3114 BC.<\/p>\n
Although much of Mayan writing was destroyed by the Spanish conquistadors, what little remains can be found in libraries in such places as Dresden, Paris and Madrid. From these writings modern scholars have learned that the Maya had a strong tradition of “world ages”. They were not alone in this as similar references to successive world ages can be found in the ancient literature of China and India.<\/p>\n
According to\u00a0the Popul-Vuh<\/em>,\u00a0a Mayan classic that included their creation myths,\u00a0four “worlds” had already been\u00a0created\u00a0by their Gods. These previous worlds had long since passed into history, and had\u00a0been replaced by the fifth world, the age in which we are now living.\u00a0The\u00a0Long Count calendar began on the date when the fourth world ended (3114 BC). And this is where the association with the year 2012 begins.<\/p>\n The Maya believed that the fourth age, or world, lasted for\u00a0exactly thirteen B’ak’tuns.<\/em>\u00a0This represented a period of about 5,125 years.\u00a0Although there is nothing in the written Mayan record to support this, some Western\u00a0writers (such as Graham Hancock and Michael Coe of Yale University) have suggested that this fifth world would endure for\u00a0the exact span of time as the fourth world. This would mean that our current world age would end exactly thirteen B’ak’tuns<\/em> after it began.<\/p>\n According to the Long Count calendar, this date would be December 21, 2012.\u00a0And all of this would have made perfect sense except that it made no sense at all to the Maya who are alive today. The reason for this is that the present-day Maya do not use the Long Count calendar. In fact many have never even heard of it, because it was used exclusively\u00a0during the “classic” period up to the year 900 AD, and is not in current usage today.<\/p>\n Mayan scholars have also rejected Coe’s ideas, as well as others who have picked up on his theories. Susan Milbrath, curator of Latin American Art and Archeology at the Florida Museum of Natural History, has pointed out that\u00a0we have no record or knowledge that the Maya predicted that the world would come to an end in 2012. Her words have been echoed by the Maya themselves.<\/p>\n Both the Mayan elder Apolinario Chile Pixtun and Mexican archaeologist Guillermo Bernal have\u00a0indicated that the word “apocalypse” is a Western concept based on Biblical teaching. As such it\u00a0has little or nothing to do with Mayan beliefs. Bernal also believes that such ideas as “the end of the world” have been foisted on the Maya by Westerners\u00a0who have their own agendas.<\/p>\n And\u00a0Mayan archaeologist Jose Huchm has stated: “If I went to some Mayan-speaking communities and asked people what is going to happen in 2012, they wouldn’t have any idea. That the world is going to end? They wouldn’t believe you. We have real concerns these days, like rain”.<\/p>\n
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