2012 Mayan or aztec calendar

Until just recently, not many people put a lot into the calendar. To most of us a calendar is blocks of time by which we arrange our busy lives. We are in tune with dayplanners; books with lines for every hour of every day, week in and week out. Suddenly the world is agog over a calendar chisled in stone. It cannot be erased or changed to suit the whims of modern life. At best, the Mayan 2012 calendar is mysterious and other worldly.

Nor is this piece of archaeolgical time keeping brightly colored. In fact, the Mayan Long Count is a series of calendars known as ‘stella’. They are actually very tall squared columns of rock that occupy a special place in each ancient Maya community. All four sides of these stella have series of glyphs and figures carved on them. Once up on a time there were many books that held the key to the Long Count calendars. All but one of the books, or codexes as they are referred to, were destroyed by the papacy in the 1500’s when the Spanish arrived to change the Maya world forever.

Many years of study has gone into deciphering the glyphs by numerous archaeoligists and historians. Originally, there were several different conclusions, with four different translations arriving at end dates within a several day range. Eventually, it was decided that one of them was correct. Then decades later this particular scholar changed his mind after further study. He proclaimed the real end date of the Mayan calendar was not December 21, 2012 but December 23, 2012.

Numerically, this is a curious date that looks the same coming and going, with a center that is a mirror of both ends. More mysterious than the baktuns and glyphs is the fact that every program on your television, webpage or print publication about the 2012 calendar of the Mayas shows the wrong artifact. Every single one of them presents you with the Aztec Sun Stone as the image of the Maya Long Count calendar.

The Aztec Sun Stone mimics the time keeping system known as the Maya Tzolkin. But the Tzolkin measures a moon cycle and just keeps rotating through the days. The Haab is very simple, while the sun stone is complex in carvings. Additionally, the Aztecs were not meticulous time keepers; in fact the dates could be off by years from one community to another. Whether it is because the sun stone is brilliantly colored or the reasoning lies elsewhere is at present unknown. Still, what most people think is the Mayan Long Count calendar is absolutely wrong. After all, the Aztecs and the Mayas are two seperate cultures.

Some people believe that the Mayan people were the first to use decimals. They learned mathmatics and calendar keeping from the Olmecs. The Olmecs were the first native inhabitants of South America in the current age of man. It is said that the Olmecs were the people saved from the land of Lemuria at the time that Atlantis and Lemuria were destroyed. So this incredible mathematical system appears to actually carry over from the third world of man. Be that as it may, the end date remains firm for the 2012 calendar on December 21st.

Stars in the sky

However, this day has great importance in cross-cultural mythology and if you do anything on that day, you should stand in appreciation of the fact that our Earth and all the stars and planets and matter in our galaxy originated at the center of our galaxy and on that day we are aligned with the source of all the atoms that make up our bodies and the stars. If you are a Creationist, then think of this 'source' perhaps as the place where God created our galaxy; remember the symbolism of this alignment exists in Christianity as well, whether its meaning is recognized or not in modern theology.

The Mayans developed the Aztec calendar 2012 in order to predict the stages each civilization will go through, having experienced them first hand as they went from hunter-gatherers to developing a concept of zero before the rest of the world, along with pressurized plumbing, sewers, metropolises and accurate astronomical calculations not repeated until modern day science and computing.

You should do your own research into the details and stay critical of what you see but these are the elements I find most compelling and possible of the Aztec calendar 2012  argument. The period of change in our civilization according to the Mayan model is about 1996-2018. Our symbolic alignment with the origin of our planet at the center of the galaxy will occur. Globalization has seen a boom with the internet, which is a way to communicate instantly across the planet, have access to all information, and has lead to a change in consciousness that comes with seeing the world in a completely different way than humans ever have in our history.

Drastic changes in first-world governments have occurred during this 2012 period so far and will continue into it, not necessarily with a world- ending war but more likely with a new world order which we are already seeing come into place with a global court, and a supranational environmental protection enforcement agency with a possible global carbon tax and a banking system beholden to no single nation yet holding great power over the global economy.

These changes in the way we see the world, the way people interact globally and domestically, the way our governments are changing, the way our wars are changing, the steps being taken toward a world governing body of some kind, etc. could all be included as evidence of a correct prediction that the world we know will end and a new world will come of it as the next stage of our civilization. According to the Aztec calendar, 2012 might be the end of the world, it is part of a prediction that we will realize in the next decade that our civilization has entered a new stage in its evolution and we as individuals will see the world in a radically different way than our ancestors.

2012 Aztec calendar

2012 is not the end of the world even if we look at the Aztec calendar 2012, it is just part of a prediction that we will realize in the next decade that our civilization has entered a new stage in its evolution and we as individuals will see the world in a radically different way than our ancestors.

As with all end of the world 2012 predictions there are different views as to what the prediction or prophecy actually means. In 2000, some people thought space aliens would come to Earth and others thought it would be the second coming of Christ. As far as I remember, those examples were not unlike the other ideas of what would happen, the most accepted of which was that there would be a massive computer/ digital problem because of the date.

The same is true for proponents of Aztec calendar 2012. There are those who go way out there and claim things about the end of the world, but the truth is that it is not a prediction of the end of the world but the beginning of a new era. Those who are more credible have based their theory of a world changing event starting according to the Aztec calendar 2012 not on some programming errors but on artifacts and records from around the world.

The Aztec and other ancients around the world have put enormous importance on symbols and other records of a recurring (tens of thousands of years apart) alignment of the Earth with the Sun on a particular axis that also aligns with our galactic plane and the center of our galaxy. The symbol for this, found across many religions and cultures, is a circle with a cross or just a simple cross. Between us and the center of the galaxy is a 'dark rift', an area empty of stars and other matter, which is often depicted in artifacts and religions as the birth canal, symbolizing the birth place of the Earth and all that is around us. 21 December 2012 is the exact date of this alignment.

Aztec history

The Aztecs were a Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican people of central Mexico in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries. They called themselves Mexica. The Republic of Mexico and its capital, Mexico City, derive their names from the word "Mexica". The capital of the Aztec empire was Tenochtitlan, built on raised island in Lake Texcoco. Mexico City is built on the ruins of Tenochtitlan. The Spanish colonization of the Americas reached the mainland during the reign of Huey Tlatoani , Moctezuma II (Montezuma II). In 1521 Hernan Cortés and an allied army of American Indians that far outnumbered the defending Aztecs, conquered the Aztecs through germ warfare, siege warfare, psychological warfare, and direct combat.

The center of the Aztec civilization was the Valley of Mexico, a huge, oval basin about 7,500 feet above sea level. The Aztec empire included many cities and towns, especially in the Valley of Mexico. The largest city in the empire was the capital, Tenochtitlan. The early settlers built log rafts, then covered them with mud and planted seeds to create roots and develop more solid land for building homes in this marshy land. Canals were also cut out through the marsh so that a typical Aztec home had its back to a canal with a canoe tied at the door.

The story of the Aztecs' rise to power is awe inspiring one, and is one of the most remarkable stories in world history. They were a relatively unknown group of people who came into the Valley of Mexico during the 12th and 13th century A.D., and rose to be the greatest power in the Americas by the time the Spaniards arrived, in the 16th century. Little is known of the earliest Aztecs, they did not keep a written record. Their history was passed on by word of mouth from one generation to the next. Legend has it that they came from an Island called Aztlan, meaning White Place - Place of Herons. In the Aztec codex Tira de la Peregrinacion, commonly called the Migration Scrolls. The scrolls have the Aztecs leaving Aztlan, which was described as an island in a lake with Chicomoztoc depicted as seven temples in the center of the island. The Aztecs felt they were the "chosen people" of Huitzilopochtli. The Aztecs believed Huitzilopochtli their war god was their protector, how had them search for their promised land.
 
Sometime during the 12th & 13th century the Aztecs straggled into the Valley of Mexico, led by their chieftain Tenoch. They were a poor, ragged people who survived on vermin, snakes, and stolen food. They were hatred and rejected by all the surrounding inhabitants of the valley, for their barbarous and uncultured habits. They were driven from one location to another. Early in the 14th century, Huitzilopochtli told Tenoch to lead his people to a place of refuge on a swampy island in Lake Texcoco. When they reached their destination, they were to look for an eagle perched on a cactus, growing from a rock or cave surrounded by water. At that location, they were to build their city and honor Huitzilopochtli with human sacrifices. The city they built was called Tenochtitlán, the city of Tenoch.

In the beginning stages of Tenochtitlán, development, Aztec life was very difficult in their undesirable location. Tenochtitlán was located on a marshy island with limited resources, they built a few thatch and mud huts, and some small temples. The Aztecs would have to work constantly to maintain a city on swampy land. There was also continuing tensions between the Aztecs and the neighboring peoples on the mainland who despised them. Despite these obstacles, the Aztecs worked hard to improve the quality of their lives. They adopted an agricultural system of farming called the Chinampas. and in a short period of time, the land was transformed into a fertile and highly productive island.

As the Aztec empire expanded, specialized craftsmen and common laborers were brought to Tenochtitlán to expand the city. Since it was built on swamp land, large wooden stakes were driven into the soft ground to provide secure foundations for the new buildings. They were able to use the stone Tezontli to construct the buildings on the unstable ground. Despite these precautions, the larger temples and palaces would often sink below ground level. As a result, the older building were continuously repaired or rebuilt with the newer structures built over the older core.

By 1376, the Aztecs knew that they had to select a emperor of royal lineage, to gain respect of their neighbors. With political genius, they chose a man by the name of Acamapichtli as their emperor. He was related to the last rulers of Culhuacán, and his lineage extended back in time to the great Toltec ruler Quetzalcóatl. With the selection of Acamapichtli as the Aztecs first true emperor, their were able to claim descendancy from the great Toltecs. During the 15th century the military strength of the Aztecs increased. They grew from a small tribe of mercenaries into a powerful and highly disciplined military force. They also formed alliances with their powerful neighbors Texcoco and Tacuba, known as the Triple Alliance. It was a time for building and the city Tenochtitlán grow and prospered.


By the end of Tenochtitlans rule, in 1520, 38 conquered tributary provinces had been made, who had to make payments. However, some of the tribes at the borders stayed strongly independent. This made it easy for the Spanish captain, Cortez to defeat them. The priests reported signs of doom, but Montezuma, the Aztec ruler, thought Cortez was a returning god. When the Spanish saw the gold presents Montezuma offered to them as presents, they wanted to conquer the city. The Spanish defeated the Aztecs and the Catholics felt that it was their duty to destroy every trace of the Aztecs. The few Aztecs that remain have carried on their culture today.

Crazy idea of 2012

New Age hacks and, now, Hollywood producers. The idea can be traced largely back to the novelist and mystic named Frank Waters, who in the 1960s and 70s wrote a number of novels and cultural treatises on Native Americans of the American southwest, including his 1963 work, Book of the Hopi (he was not an anthropologist).

One of Waters’ last works was Mexico Mystique: The Coming Sixth Age of Consciousness (1975), an odd pastiche of Aztec and Maya philosophies wherein he proposed that the “end” of the calendar would somehow involve a transformation of world spiritual awareness. Waters’ ideas got picked up and expanded upon by Jose Arguelles in his insanely misguided but influential book The Mayan Factor: Path Beyond Technology (1987). Many different writers have followed with their own strange books and essays on the “meaning” of 2012, mostly contradicting one another.