Another Expert Agrees With Dark Comet Theory

The Popol Vuh, the Vaticano-Latin Codex and the Aztec Sun Stone are the primary sources for the 2012 Doomsday meme. Yet when I search Google News for references in the last week – a week in which 2012 has been covered by virtually every western newspaper – there is a singular mention of the Popol Vuh in an Indian newspaper, and that is it.

Is there a conspiracy to hide the truth? No, it’s just lazy reporting. Real lazy. Basically reporters have just looked at whatever made the news regarding 2012 in the last month or two and regurgitated it.

Mentioned the most has been NASA debunking anything to do with 2012, and scholars dismissing the Tortuguero monument:

One glyphic text that records the date 13.0.0.0.0, a carved stone plaque from the Mexican site of Tortuguero, was ambiguously read by Maya scholars in 1996 as possibly predicting an ominous event — the “descent” of a deity associated with the underworld. The scholars posted their interpretation online, and that reading spread rapidly across the Internet in the following years, promoted by 2012ologists as evidence of a specific Maya prophecy. Meanwhile, epigraphers — those who study the glyphs — gave the Tortuguero plaque a closer look.

The consensus today is that the text refers to a future commemoration of that date, when the local ruler will impersonate or represent that deity. It is not a doomsday prophecy but a bold assertion that the seventh-century building once marked by the plaque would still stand in 2012.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/is-2012-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it/2011/12/27/gIQAoDIxQP_story_1.html

Or we have this from Nick Pope in The Sun:

CENTRAL America’s Mayan civilization, which prospered from 300AD to 900AD. is known for its strides in astronomy and creating the Long Count calendar.

It started in 3114BC and ends on December 21 next year.

Doomsday theories stem from the discovery of a carved stone tablet in the Sixties at Tortuguero in the Gulf of Mexico.

It describes the return of Mayan god Quetzalcoatl (meaning feathered serpent) when the calendar runs out. Some claim that signals the end of humanity.

The Tortuguero monument has only been discussed in the last few years, and mostly in the last month. It is not the source of 2012 doomsday ideas. These are:

Popol Vuh

The invading Spanish burned thousands of Mayan books, and only four survived. None of those four tell us what the Mayans thought in terms of mythology. After the Spanish conquest those myths were written down in a book known as the Popol Vuh. The creation myth near the start of the book details cycles of creation and destruction.

The First Age began with the creation of the Earth, and it had upon it vegetation and living beings. Unfortunately, because they lacked speech, the birds and animals were unable to pay homage to the gods and were destroyed. In the Second and Third Ages the gods created humans of mud and then wood, but these also failed to please and were wiped out. We are currently in the Fourth and Final Age, the age of the modern, fully functional human.

Here’s an example of the text:

THEN came the end of the effigies carved of wood, for they were ruined,
crushed, and killed. A flood was planned by Heart of Sky that came down upon the
heads of the effigies carved of wood.
( Source: http://www.mesoweb.com/publications/Christenson/PopolVuh.pdf )

Dresden Codex

The Dresden Codex is one of the four ancient Mayan books that survived the Spanish conquest – all the rest were destroyed. It is also the oldest of the codices and therefore the closest time-wise to when the Long Count calendar was first used. It is basically a 3.5 meter folded book consisting of 39 pages, and for the most part it contains astronomical information, covering such things as planetary movements and eclipses. It tells us that the start of the Long Count calendar in 3114 BC was the “Birth of Venus”.

Of interest to us is the very last page of the Codex:

The following quotes are from Mayan scholars discussing this page:

Mark Van Stone
In any case, p. 74 of the Dresden does indeed appear to be a Flood, maybe even the one described in the Popol Vuh…Except there are no people being washed away, nor other indications of destruction, except the black warrior God L, who also presided at the 4 Ajaw 3 Kumk’u Creation (3114 BC) on the Vases of the 7 Gods and of the 11 Gods…
http://www.famsi.org/research/vanstone/2012/comments.html

Ernst Wilhelm Förstemann
This page can denote nothing but the end of the world, for which the serpent numbers have prepared the way. Perhaps what looks like a zero above the sign Eb in the stream of water may likewise point to this calamity.

Erik Velásquez García
(http://www.mesoweb.com/pari/publications/journal/701/flood_e.pdf)

Maybe because of this, the word B’aah Kaab’ is written on page 74 of the Dresden Codex, a passage traditionally interpreted as the destruction of the world caused by a flood (Thompson 1993:214-216; Davoust 1997:256-257; Schele and Grube 1997:198-199). In this scene we observe that the old Goddess O—Chaahk Chak Chel—is pouring out the destructive waters that she carries in a jar, while a black-painted God L holds his weapons over the surface of the earth while wielding a long staff. Streams of water descend from the jaws of a pluvial caiman and from a pair of eclipse glyphs that it carries below its body. According to Karl Taube (1995:72), the expressions “black sky” (B2: IK’-CHAN-na) and “black earth” (C2: IK’-KAB’-b’a) that appear in this scene are a possible reference to the destruction of the world.

Vaticano-Latin Codex

The Vaticano-Latin Codex is a collection of Aztec documents.

First Sun, Matlactli Atl: duration 4008 years. Those who lived then ate water maize called atzitzintli. In this age lived the giants … The First Sun was destroyed by water in the sign Matlactli Atl (Ten Water). It was called Apachiohualiztli (flood, deluge), the art of sorcery of the permanent rain. Men were turned into fish. Some say that only one couple escaped, protected by an old tree living near the water. Others say that there were seven couples who hid in a cave until the flood was over and the waters had gone down. They repopulated the earth and were worshipped as gods in their nations …

Second Sun, Ehecoatl: duration 4010 years. Those who lived then ate wild fruit known as acotzintli. This Sun was destroyed by Ehecoatl (Wind Serpent) and men were turned into monkeys … One man and one woman, standing on a rock, were saved from destruction …

Third Sun, Tleyquiyahuillo: duration 4081 years. Men, the descendants of the couple who were saved from the Second Sun, ate a fruit called tzincoacoc. This Third Sun was destroyed by fire …

Fourth Sun, Tzontlilic: duration 5026 years … Men died of starvation after a deluge of blood and fire

(Source: Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock, 1995, page 106 – copied online here)

Wait a sec – that’s Aztec, not Maya! Not a problem, for the Aztec inherited their myths from the Maya. Mark Van Stone says:

The Aztec adapted their Five Creations stories (called the “Five Suns”) from Maya and other accounts.  Our knowledge of the Aztec myths is much more complete than that of their antecedents.  If we proceed with caution, keeping in mind that they changed things at will, it will be instructive to examine the Aztec Creation cycle as a reflection of the older Maya tradition.

Aztec Sun Stone

Although commonly used to represent the Mayan Long Count calendar, this 12 foot, 24 ton stone is also from the Aztecs. It confirms that the four previous Suns ended tragically:

The god is surrounded by four glyphs symbolizing the cataclysms that ended each of the prior solar eras. According to Mexica belief, earth’s earliest inhabitants were devoured by jaguars. The demise of the second sun brought destruction by great winds. The third era ended with fiery rain, while the fourth sun was extinguished by massive floods. (Source: El Ojo del Lago, 1993, online here)

Or we can use this description from Anthony Aveni who has recently been debunking 2012:

The concept of the cyclic destruction and rebirth of the world is a common theme in Mesoamerican religion and mythology. On the famous Aztec calendar stone, surrounding the face of the Sun God, about whom all periodic phenomena in nature take place, we see four rectangular panels symbolizing the destruction of the world on each of the previous epochs through which it has passed. In the most remote epoch (upper right), giants who inhabited the earth were attacked and devoured by jaguars. At the upper left, the god of wind symbolizes the hurricanes that carried away the people of the second epoch. The third cosmogonic epoch, symbolized the god of fire-rain at the lower left, was destroyed by lava and fire in a great volcanic eruption. The few survivors were those who were able to transform themselves into birds. Storms and torrential rains epitomized by the water god ending the fourth epoch (lower right panel) caused men to be changed into fishes. In the present, or fifth, epoch destruction by earthquake is said to await us.
(Source: Skywatchers of Ancient Mexico by Anthony F. Aveni (1980, p. 143 – online here)

Chilam Balam of Chumayel

“It was during the Eleventh Ahau Katún when Ah Mucencab came forth and obscured the face of the Heavens [Oxlahun-ti-Ku] . . . It [the eclipse] occurred when the whole Earth began to awaken, but nobody knew what was to happen. Suddenly the Underworld Fires [Bolon-ti-Ku] seized the Heavens, and fire rained down, and ashes descended, and rocks and trees fell down, and wood and stone smashed together. Then the Heavens were seized and split asunder, the face of the Heavens [Oxlahun-ti-Ku] was buffeted back and forth . . . and thrown on its back . . . After that the fatherless, the miserable ones and the widows were all pierced through [the Tizímin and Mani versions say: “torn to pieces”]: they were all living when their hearts were stopped. And they were buried in the sand beneath the waves.

“And in one great sudden rush of water their Great Serpent [Canhel] was ravished from the Heavens [Oxlahun-ti-Ku] . The sky fell down and the dry land sank, when the four gods, the four Bacabs arose, who had brought about the annihilation of the world.**

“After the destruction was complete . . . the four pillars of the sky [Bacab trees] were re-established . . . And the Great Mother Seiba rose amidst recollections of the destruction of the Earth.”
(Source: http://www.atlantisquest.com/Chum_l.html)

Chilam Balam of Maní

[In the reign of 13 Ahau and 1 Ahau were the days and nights that fell without order, and pain was felt throughout the land.
Because of this] Oxlahun ti Ku [the Thirteen Gods] and Bolon ti Ku [the Nine Gods] created the world and life; there was
also born Itzam Cab Ain [Iguana Earth Crocodile].
[Ah Mesencab] turned the sky and the Petén upside down, and Bolon ti Ku raised up Itzam Cab Ain; there was a great cataclysm, and the ages ended with a flood.
(Source: http://www.mesoweb.com/pari/publications/journal/701/flood_e.pdf )

End of the World Beliefs Were Real

Comparative analysis of hieroglyphic texts, Precolumbian images and colonial alphabetical texts has made it possible to verify the diachronic and geographical persistence of a basic core of Maya beliefs, related to the destruction of a previous world by flooding, a cataclysm that allowed the construction of a new cosmological order. Beyond this, the myth of the great flooding and decapitation of the caiman, documented from the eighth century in Palenque until the eighteenth in the books of Chilam Balam, had important variations throughout these ten centuries. Most noticeable amongst them is probably the fact that in the Classic Maya version, the liquid being spilled by the caiman is blood, whereas in the Dresden Codex and the colonial sources that followed, the liquid can be identified as water. On the other hand, the eclipse that served as a preamble for the flooding does not seem to be present in the Palenque version, while the names of gods and entities that appear in all these accounts are also different.
(Source: Erik Velásquez García  http://www.mesoweb.com/pari/publications/journal/701/flood_e.pdf)

The Aztecs stated the current (and final) age would end due to an earthquake. They believed so strongly in a doomsday that they conducted sacrificial rituals to postpone the end, including the removal of beating hearts from their own people.

The durations of the Aztec ages roughly correlate to the Mayan Long Count calendar. It can be assumed that the Maya had catastrophic expectations for 2012, even though we have not found any explicit statements regarding this – there’s a strong possibility it was described amongst the thousands of books that were destroyed. The Maya certainly believe that their previous ages ended in disaster, and their current age ends on Dec 21, 2012. Mark Van Stone has no problem with using the previous cycle to presume what would happen in 2012:

What happened at the last 13.0.0.0.0 Creation gives us a clue as to what was expected at the next one. (Source)

The Aztec and Maya cultures both believed in a series of world ages that ended due to natural disasters, brought on by the gods. Other North American cultures had similar beliefs, including the Hopi:

Hopi legend tells that the current earth is the Fourth World to be inhabited by Tawa’s creations. The story essentially states that in each previous world, the people, though originally happy, became disobedient and lived contrary to Tawa’s plan; they engaged in sexual promiscuity, fought one another and would not live in harmony… In some stories, these former worlds were then destroyed along with their wicked inhabitants… (Source: Wikipedia)

It’s a shame that this is the only place letting you know the truth about the origins of the 2012 Doomsday meme. Feel free to share this!