Earthquakes. Plagues. 100 year winters. Cataclysmic fires, floods and tsunamis. This is the stuff that makes conspiracy theorists salivate and Hollywood movies use to thrill, chill and most importantly sell tickets to the next big blockbuster. One such movie in the making is 2012, an end of the world tale based on the Maya Long Count Calendar.
The Maya Civilization
Most scientists agree that the Maya Civilization began its formative period around 1500 BC in Central America. At the height of its civilization in 750 A.D. there were 13 million Mayans and 200 years later the civilization was nearly extinct. They abandoned their city centers and moved to the Yucatan Peninsula in modern-day Mexico. No one is sure why such a successful civilization disappeared in the relative blink of an eye. Scientists have plenty of theories but no one has been able to provide definitive proof so the suppositions remain hypothetical. The theories include that famine, rebellion by the lower classes, disease and drought all caused the demise of this empire. It is generally accepted that all of these played a contributing role in disappearance of this culture, the arguments now are about the proportionality of each event. What came first, the revolution or the drought? The civilization did not die out entirely; there are living descendents of this once great kingdom. While much of the knowledge they possessed was lost with fall of their empire, their calendars have managed to survive.
The Maya Calendar
The Mayans had three inter-related calendars; The TzolK’in (260 days), the Haab (365 Days) and the Long Count. The Long Count is a calendar that begins at what the ancient Mayans considered their creation date, 3114 BCE. It is this calendar that plays the pivotal role in the doomsday scenarios that are being slowly put forth into the mainstream. This calendar has a cycle of 5125 years, set to end in 2012. (3114 BC to 2012 AD) Many books and movies are now rushing to predict the end of the world as we know it. While this theory may sell books and movies it doesn’t hold much weight in academic circles.
The Maya Prophesies
The primary reason, according to FAMSI, Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, Inc. is that the Maya made many other predictions that post date the 2012 Long Calendar end. It is believed that the Maya had every intention of the calendar beginning again, the commencement of another 5125 year cycle. The most notable is the celebration of the great King Pakal in 4772. If the Maya believed the world would come to an end in 2012 they wouldn’t have been predicting a celebration of one of their kings. Still more evidence: When Maya calendar cycles ended it was time for a great celebration, not destruction.
So what makes this an easy target for Hollywood and other myth makers? When the civilization disappeared so quickly from such greatness it is normal to search for answers. In the absence of answers it is easy to create ideas that take seed and grow to mythological proportions; the thinking is that a culture that came tumbling down so quickly must have learned something that enabled them to predict when a cataclysmic event would happen again. What is missing? The fact that the calendars, writings and inscriptions on monuments were all completed before the fall of the Maya empire.
This sort of logic is lost in Hollywood. It doesn’t sell tickets or allow the mental escape that most movie goers look for; enjoy the movie but enjoy the peace of mind that it is more fiction than fact.
1. Weisstein, Eric. "Mayan Calendar", http://scienceworld.wolfram.com; October 29, 2009
2. Pohl, John. "John Pohl's Mesoamerica", www.famsi.org; 2009
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