Mayan Calendar Mysteries: Why Would The World Just End?

Doomsday predictions are nothing new. Solar flares, WW3, peak oil, insufficient food production, a flip of the earth's magnetic field, pandemics (well at least this one isn't world-ending...), but perhaps the Maya calendar prophecy was the most bizarre of the long line of world-ending candidates.

So just what was the fuss all about in 2012. What was it that left the world waking up normally on 22nd December 2021 but leaden with a weak-plotted, stupidly overdramatized, and over CGI'ed movie of the name of the year? Still if one is worried about some impending end, then the largest underground survival bunkers are at Vivos xPoint in South Dakota.

About The Mayan Calendar

The Maya calendar is a system of calendars that were used in pre-Columbian times in the Guatemalan highlands and some parts of Mexico.

The essentials of the Maya calendar we based on a much older system that had been used in the region that dated back to at least the 5th century BC. The Maya calendar shared aspects with other calendars of earlier Mesoamerican civilizations (like the Olmec - who were the first to make chocolate and are famous for the "colossal heads").

The Maya calendar consisted of several cycles or counts of different lengths (these are too complicated to go through here, one can read about it on History Museum).

The 2012 End of the World

So why the hysteria in 2012?

After 21 December 2012 NASA ran a cheeky article stating:

"News flash: the world didn't end on Dec. 21, 2012. You've probably already figured that out for yourself. Despite reports of an ancient Maya prophecy, a mysterious planet on a collision course with Earth, or a reverse in Earth's rotation, we're still here."

The BBC ran an article entitled Mayan apocalypse: End of the world, or a new beginning? in 2012 stated that one in ten people were feeling some anxiety about that date.

It said the Russians were so concerned that the Minister for Emergency Situations issued a denial the world would end. Authorities even barred people from visiting the village of Bugarach in France where people were gathering in the belief that a UFO would rescue them *sigh*. People were anxious that:

"Recent hurricanes, unrest in the Middle East, solar flares, mystery planets about to collide with us - all "proof" of what the ancient Mayans knew would come to pass on 21 December 2012."

The date 21 December 2012 steamed from what was regarded as the end date of a 5,126-year-long cycle in the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar.

Dooms Day Predictions: Included Earth Reversing Rotation, Collision With A Mythical Planet, Black Holes, and More
Prophecies: Not All Prophecies Were Cataclysmic

Not everyone thought the date would be cataclysmic. Some thought it would correspond to certain astronomical alignments or that humanity would undergo a positive physical or spiritual transformation with 21 December 2012 making the beginning of a new era.

Prophets of doom and gloom made such predictions as the earth being gobbled up by a supermassive black hole or that a mythical planet, Nibiru, would run smack into the earth.

It Was All A Misunderstanding of The Calendar

But Mayan scholars' voices proclaiming that no classic Mayan accounts actually forecasted doom were drowned out in internet-driven sensation. Scholars maintained that even the idea of the Long Count calendar ending in 2012 was a misrepresentation of Mayan history and culture. But as the expression goes "reason is powerless in the obstinate love of fiction."

So it would seem that the whole thing was a misunderstanding or hoax. Dr. John Carlson, the director of the Center of Archaeoastronomy stated it...

"was a misconception from the very beginning. The Maya calendar did not end on Dec. 21, 2012, and there were no Maya prophecies foretelling the end of the world on that date."

Sometimes the truth can be plain disappointingly boring.

See The Mayan Calendar And Similar Artefacts

If one would like to travel and see the culprit for this mass hysteria a decade ago, one can find the Mayan calendars in a number of museums around the world.

Smithsonian Replica: The Smithsonian’s National Museum has a replica of a Mayan Calendar Round that represents September 21, 2004 - the date of the opening of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian on the National Mall.

Replica: There Is A Replica Of The Calander in the Smithsonian

This calendar round is actually two separate calendars (or cycles). One cycle governs agricultural work (365 days) and the other governs religious practices (260 days).

Aztec Sun Stone: While not Mayan and probably not a calendar, the Aztec Sun Stone is certainly impressive and a must for anyone visiting Mexico City. It is housed in the National Anthropology Museum in Mexico City and is perhaps the most famous work of Mexica sculpture.

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