Will
the world end in 2012? No, it won't.
Will there
be a major cataclysm in 2012? Quite possibly.
Although
this book concentrates on a potential global catastrophe at a random date within
our immediate future, there are three powerful arguments for that date being Dec
21, 2012. I present them here, not as certainties, but as possibilities worth
considering.
2. The Mayan Calendar
The Maya
The
Maya civilisation inhabited a region encompassing southern Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Belize & western Honduras, and flourished between the third and tenth centuries AD, but by 1200 AD
their society had collapsed for reasons we can only guess at. When the Spanish
conquistadors arrived, descendants still occupied the area, and still spoke the
Mayan language, but were unaware of the cities their forefathers had created.
It
wasn't until the late 18th century that explorers first investigated
the dense Guatemalan rainforest and came across plazas, monoliths, temples and
pyramids, each decorated with pictures and hieroglyphs. The ancient Maya had been
keeping historical records - using a script which mixed ideographic and phonetic
elements. Some of their writing still exists on stelae (stone monuments) that
recount civil events and record their calendric and astronomical knowledge.
Spanish Conquest
Diego de Landa was a
Spanish priest who visited Mexico on a charitable mission, became the Franciscan
provincial of Yucatán in 1561 and is infamous for his destruction of priceless
Maya documents and artefacts.
Although Landa was
very interested in the Mayan culture, he abhorred certain aspects of their practices,
particularly human sacrifice. In July 1562, when evidence of human sacrifice was
found in a cave containing sacred Maya statues, a bout of religious self-righteousness
saw Landa order the destruction of five thousand idols. He decided that their
books were also the devil's work and saw to it that they were burned, with only
three books surviving. Consequently the majority of Mayan knowledge and history
was lost.
 This
is just a small portion of my online book, Survive 2012 - a look into possible
ways our world might end, and how to survive. Available in bookstores sometime
before 2012, fingers-crossed... |
Yet
despite his actions, we are also indebted to Landa for his acute and intelligent
opus on Mayan life and religion, Relación de las cosas de Yucatán (1566),
which remains the classical text on Mayan civilisation. This book, which was not
printed until 1864, provided a phonetic alphabet that made it possible to decipher
roughly one-third of the remaining Mayan hieroglyphs.
The
most important of the surviving books was what is now called the Dresden Codex,
named after the city where it was lodged. It is a strange book, inscribed with
hieroglyphs, which no one understood until 1880. At that time Ernst FØrstemann,
a German scholar who worked at the same Dresden library, managed to crack the
code of the Mayan calendar making it possible for other academics to translate
the many dated inscriptions found on buildings, stelae and other ancient Mayan
artefacts.
He discovered that the Codex contained
detailed astrological tables, which calculated the year to be 365.2420 days long,
more accurate than the Julian calendar that we use today. The tables were used
exclusively by the Mayan astronomers to predict the solstices and equinoxes, the
path of the planets in our solar system, the cycles of Venus and Mars, and other
celestial phenomena.
Other information we have today
has been gleaned from the Popol Vuh and Chilam Balam - books written just after
the Spanish arrived. The knowledge found in these books and codices, combined
with the uncovering of mysterious pyramids, demonstrate that the Maya had an intelligence
to rival the Greeks and Egyptians.
Mayan Calendar
The life of the Maya revolved around the concept
of time. Priests were consulted on civil, agricultural and religious matters,
and their advice would be derived from readings of the sacred calendars. Time
was of such importance that children were even named after the date on which they
were born.
Maya math uses only three symbols - a
shell-shaped glyph for zero, a dot for one and a bar for five to represent units
from zero to 19. For instance, the number 13 was represented as three dots and
two bars.
Zero was
an advanced concept in those days, something that the Romans were not aware of.
Yet the Maya were comfortable enough with it to use a shell as its symbol, a tangible
object representing an abstract concept. The Maya also used metrical calculation
and place numeration, which were very clever for a culture that didn't use the
wheel!
Although they had many calendars, they marked
the passage of time with three cycles that ran in parallel.
The
first is the scared calendar known as the Tzolkin. It combines the numbers from
1 through 13 with a sequence of 20 day-names. It works in a similar manner to
our named days of the week, and their date within each month. So you might have
5-Chikchan (like our Sunday the 5th) followed by 6-Kimi (as we would have Monday
the 6th). After 260 days the same number/name combination will re-occur, and the
calendar starts anew. Their use of the vigesimal (base 20) numbering system probably
relates to fingers and toes, whereas the 13 nicely fits the growth phase of the
moon which isn't visible when new and appears full for two days on end, thus appearing
to have a 13 day growth cycle. Alternatively, the length of the Tzolkin may be
related to the human gestation period of nine months (273 days). It has been suggested
that 260 days is the time between a woman suspecting her pregnancy (she doesn't
menstruate) and when she gives birth.
The second
is the agricultural calendar known as the Haab, or vague year. It consists of
18 months, each of 20 days. An addition of a five-day month (a period of apprehension
and bad luck named Uayeb) gives us 365 days, an approximation of a year. This
calendar's primary purpose was to keep track of the seasons, for seasonal and
solar events would occur on roughly the same day of each year. The Maya were aware
of the annual quarter day discrepancy, but it is not known if they ever did anything
about it.
These two independently running calendars
each begin again every 260 and 360+5 days. However, every 52 years they coincide:
"The Tzolkin and the Haab ran concurrently, like intermeshed
cog-wheels, and to return to any given date, 52 years, or 18,980 days, would have
to elapse (because both 365 x 52 and 260 x 73 = 18,980). In other words, the Tzolkin
would make 73 revolutions and the Haab 52, so that every 52 calendar years of
365 days one would return to the same date. A complete date in this 52-year cycle
might be, for example, 2 1k 0 Pop (2 1k being the position of the day in the Tzolkin,
0 Pop the position in the Haab). Fifty-two years would pass before another 2 1k
0 Pop date returned.
It was expected that the world
would end at the completion of a 52-year cycle. At this time, among the Mexica
in the Valley of Mexico, all fires were extinguished, pregnant women were locked
up lest they be turned into wild animals, children were pinched to keep them awake
so that they would not turn into mice, and all pottery was broken in preparation
for the end of the world. In the event the gods decided to grant man another 52
years of life on earth, however, a night time ceremony was held in which the populace
followed the priests through the darkness over a causeway to the top of an old
extinct volcano that rises abruptly from the floor of the basin of Mexico, known
today as the Hill of the Star, the hill above Ixtapalapa. There, with all eyes
on the stars, they awaited the passage of the Pleiades across the center of the
heavens, which would announce the continuation of the world for another 52 years.
When the precise moment came, a victim was quickly sacrificed by making a single
gash in his chest and extracting the still palpitating heart. In the gory cavity
the priests, with a fire drill, kindled a new flame that was quickly carried by
torches across the lake to the temple in Tenochititlan, and from there to all
temples and villages around the lake. This was known as the New Fire Ceremony
among the Mexica, and in some way this same completion and renewal of each 52-year
cycle was recognized by all Mesoamericans."[i]
This
is not unlike how the end of the last millennium may have felt for many Christians
or doomsday cult followers.
Our modern Western calendar
was first introduced in Europe in 1582. It was based upon the Gregorian calendar,
which calculated the Earth's orbit to take 365.25 days. This was 0.0003 of a
day per year too much, but still exceptionally accurate for scientists living
over 400 years ago.
The Mayan calendars were derived
from those of their predecessors, the Olmec, whose culture dates back at least
3,000 years. Without the instruments of 16th century Europe, these
Central American locals managed to calculate a solar year of 365.2420 days, just
0.0002 of a day short. More accurate than the Europeans, and much earlier.
The
Long Count
A Mayan date utilises three calendars. The third
calendar, known as the "long count", is a continuous record of days
that starts over every 5000 years or so. The current Long Count began in 3114
BC. And it will end very soon.
A typical Mayan date
looks like this:
12.18.16.2.6,
3 Cimi 4 Zotz
4 Zotz is
the Haab date.
3 Cimi is the Tzolkin date.
12.18.16.2.6
is the Long Count date.
The basic unit is the kin
(day), which is the last component of the Long Count. Going from right to left
the remaining components are:
- unial........1
unial = 20 kin = 20 days
- tun..........1 tun = 18
unial = 360 days = approx. 1 year
- katun.......1
katun = 20 tun = 7,200 days = approx. 20 years
- baktun.....1
baktun = 20 katun = 144,000 days = approx. 394 years
The kin, tun, and katun are numbered from 0 to 19.
The unial are numbered from 0 to 17.
The baktun are numbered from 1 to 13.
The
Long Count is a great cycle of 13 baktuns (roughly 5,126 years), where the use
of 13 may again represent the growth of the moon from new to full. The current
cycle began on 13.0.0.0.0 4 Ahau 8 Cumku which correlates to Aug. 13, 3114 BC.
In
Mayan mythology each Long Count cycle is a world age in which the gods attempt
to create pious and subservient creatures.
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. Is it possible that these Ages referred to evolutionary
change? If they did, then what might occur when the current age finishes on December
21, 2012?
Discuss Survive
2012 at our forumGive the author your thoughts, and discuss any 2012
ideas with others, at 2012 Forum |
Comments from Visitors
Sam and Emily:
We're a couple of teenagers interested in what is going on. Obviously, we're not at an intellectual level or attention span to grasp long-winded theories and arguments stated above. But we'd like to be informed. What we have gathered is that the end of the Mayan Calendar ((who goes by this calendar?)) in 2012 and odd happenings ((can I have a specific example or web link?)) with a supervolcano in Yellowstone are being linked, leading to the belief of the end of the world. What's with the magnetic poles flipping? Isn't that supposed to happen a long time from now?
-
- We may be very far off, and any clarifications or responses would be very appriciated. In simpler and shorter terms, as once we get the general idea we're capable of doing our own research.
(22.07.2005, 20:36)
JayInAtlanta:
Hi there, I too am a Christian, but by believing that there might be a possibility that the world might come to an end in 2012 or whenever doesn't void your Christianity beliefs.
-
- Ruth Montgomery, a journalist for the Washington Post, wrote many books. Her last book, "The World to Come," tells about the world ending around 2012 too. For some of you this might be a bit too much to conceive, but it's an interesting idea and she's a credible source. You can find her book on Amazon.com
-
- From what I've gathered, there's going to a shift in the earth that's going to change the earth drastically, but we'll survive. Ruth's book is insightful and leads us to believe that we shouldn't be scared.
-
- Here's a sight I also found about the shift -
- http://www.poleshiftprepare.com/
-
- There's all sorts of stuff on this, not just the Mayan's. Just do some research on The Shift and you'll see some of the ideas out there. It all could just be a bunch of Y2K worrying, or is it something more? You can make your own decisions but I've hope I've provided you with some more reading material. Once anyone read's Ruth Montgomery's book, I'd love to hear what you think. I'll be laughing with everyone else if the earth is alive and well in 2015.
(26.07.2005, 17:16)
Tecun Uman:
There is a website that completely blows the "end of the world theory; 2012" out of the water. Click on my name for the website or simply go to:
- http://www.biopark.org/peru/mayan-calendar.html
(27.07.2005, 20:37)
Professor ew:
The Mayan Calendar is remarkable and respected as the most accurate calendar to date! Passionately obsessed with measurement, time and astronomy; The Mayans predicted, due to the transitional changes in our shifting universe, that "time" would change. Forced to adjust our measurements, the relevant timed cycle we all are accustomed to, i.e., comparative minute, hour, day, month, year... will no longer be precise. Cosmic gravitational influences will stimulate global climatic change, and may even be sporadic at times.
-
- My suggestion? Install better insulation, a more efficient heater, a highly efficient air conditioner, invest in energy stocks and write your congressmen supporting energy distributing reform.
(30.07.2005, 09:47)
Anonumus:
I have gotten a shocking reading. An asteroid is to hit or come perilously close to earth. The asteroid is named 1950 D.A. You can tell an asteroids toghness by its spin. The slower the weaker. And vise versa. 1950 D.A spins very quickly. For those who might worry, it is to happen in 277-278 years. As for the pole shift, my friends mock me. I think it may happen. After all, were overdue! It is said to happen every 200,000 years. If you can find info on how to survive, I'd appreciate it if you e mail me. Just type what website you found it on and I'll do the rest. Thank you.
(28.08.2005, 17:12)
Jackson:
The connection between the pyramids around the world and the stories surrounding them, containing hints and clues of a lost sonic technology are written in almost every acient civilization. It suggests a very advanced form of mathmatics which has also been shown in the alignment of the pyramids around the world and the placement of equinotical markers, leading me to believe that if the Mayans have a timeframe for a cataclysm that has been thouroghly mapped to precision over a long period of time of observation and possibly even more ancient records forever lost to the times.
(08.09.2005, 20:17)
someone:
(15.09.2005, 23:16)
someone:
(15.09.2005, 23:17)
someone:
(15.09.2005, 23:19)
someone:
(15.09.2005, 23:20)
someone:
The Tribulation will last for seven years and at the end of this Jesus will return to the earth and establish the Kingdom of God for a thousand years (Eze 43:1; Isa 2:1). Remember this, the Holy Bible teaches us that the true Messiah Jesus will come to the earth, and everyone will see him when he descends from the clouds. When he touches the Mount of Olives, the entire earth will shake by a Great Earth Quake and the very mountain will spilt into two parts (Zec 14:1).
(15.09.2005, 23:20)
someone:
(15.09.2005, 23:21)
someone:
(15.09.2005, 23:23)
someone:
(15.09.2005, 23:23)
someone:
(15.09.2005, 23:23)
life is beautiful:
you people sit here and scare people..i know youre trying to follow religion and say that we should worship god daily, but in all actuallity GOD forgives all his children for their sins and welcomes them with open arms, even if they DIDNT worship him daily, go to church (which is a profit orginization anyway if you really think about it...although i dont object to people who go) i just dont understand how some of you can controdict yourselfs on so many levels. and if the world really is going to end, enjoy life for every second you have left...dont prepare for what you call the proficy...because if it doesnt happen youll feel like assholes, but if it does, we wont be here to worry about it anyway, so enjoy life for everything its worth, LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL!!!
(19.09.2005, 12:41)
Anon:
hannah ;....
(19.09.2005, 14:16)
Andrew:
America will fall it will be a righteous time for the biggest tyrants of the world come crashing. Are SUPERPOWER cause many to starve and die. It is like the worlds biggest GANGLAND. It is put in such a fashion were it looks like were doing right, but were all wrong. MEDIA has been COVERING THE TRUTH since it was able to by individuals that control it. This time of war is Egypt rising the lost era, by delusion. What are now Palistinians are trying to rise. Neither Arabs or Jews will win individually, but they will win together. Water and Fire, Space and Time. When more people start feeling slugish, dizzy,and time is moving slower like a hot summer day. And by like winter they fall into there trances, rise in intellect, and leave this world without materialism (America, China, Blood and Money). Back up within yourself, find yourself, retreat. I don't think the world will end at 2012 only ending as we know it. Live in the Kingdom of God( Yourself) which is made and fabricated based on others ( Love,Hate,Sorrow,Happiness) Emotions(The 6th sense). Do on to others as you would do onto you. Abuse is not righteous for it renders the experiance, and meaning useless, anything useless is not worthy to life, true death then spreads your spirit would be battered.
(19.09.2005, 19:13)
Jonathan:
the world can't end in 2012 bcuz god says in bible code he'll crush it, and the year 2126 is in bible code which is proof we'll be around past 2126.
(21.09.2005, 21:44)
anon:
plz jonathan, the bible code says it could end in 2006.. my personal view is that all this is bogus. cmon people! how long has mankind been on this planet, how long has life been on this planet, going right back to the dinosaurs. as with these implants with american people. im just glad i dont live in america. oh and the EU having an elected president, thats no way going to happen, in my view the EU states are going to stay as they are or splinter off after the constitution defeat in fance. i hear so many stories and dates of MAD! yes MAD people who think they know when the world will end. on my account people said it would end in 97 and in 99 and to be honest these people are just sick! you know, keep your made theories to yourselves instead of trying to cause panic. if nothing can be done to stop it, why mention it? oh and all those bible quotes are moer than likely from the same poster, get a life! (im not saying you shouldnt belive in god, you should and i encourage people to readf the bible, but saying what you did is un christian)
(22.09.2005, 09:04)
20 of 92 comments (part 1) [
»
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Script by Alex
|
[i] Weaver, Muriel Porter. The Aztecs,
Maya, and their Predecessors. (1972) Seminar Press, p.103-4
Note
on massive spans of time
Although they are
not part of the Long Count, the Mayas had calculated larger time spans, some so
long that only modern day scientists would ever use them, and suggesting that
perhaps the ancient Maya were aware of something we have yet to discover for ourselves.
1
pictun = 20 baktun = 2,880,000 days = approx. 7885 years
1
calabtun = 20 pictun = 57,600,000 days = approx. 158,000 years
1
kinchiltun = 20 calabtun = 1,152,000,000 days = approx. 3 million years
1
alautun = 20 kinchiltun = 23,040,000,000 days = approx. 63 million years
Note
on Correlation This book uses a correlation
between the Gregorian and Maya calendars known as the Goodman-Martinez-Thompson
(GMT) correlation, which places the long count katun ending 11.16.0.0.0 13 Ahau
8 Xul on 14 November 1539 (Gregorian). Another less popular correlation has the
Long Count ending two days later on Dec 23, 2012, and for our purposes makes a
negligible difference. A further 50 or more different correlations have been calculated;
some by non-academics, usually based on disputing which similar astronomical events
occurred in which year. The GMT is generally accepted by academics because it
has been proven with carbon dating, and because it is still in use by modern day
Quich¾ Maya
