Mayan history

The Maya are probably the best-known of the classical civilizations of Mesoamerica. Mayan history starts in the Yucatan around 2600 B.C., Mayan history rose to prominence around A.D. 250 in present-day southern Mexico, Guatemala, western Honduras, El Salvador, and northern Belize. Building on the inherited inventions and ideas of earlier civilizations such as the Olmec, the Maya developed astronomy, calendrical systems and hieroglyphic writing. The Maya were noted as well for elaborate and highly decorated ceremonial architecture, including temple-pyramids, palaces and observatories, all built without metal tools.

Mayan history shows that they were also skilled farmers, clearing large sections of tropical rain forest and, where groundwater was scarce, building sizeable underground reservoirs for the storage of rainwater. The Maya were equally skilled as weavers and potters, and cleared routes through jungles and swamps to foster extensive trade networks with distant peoples. Many people believe that the ancestors of the Maya crossed the Bering Strait at least 20,000 years ago. They were nomadic hunter-gatherers. Evidence of settled habitation in Mexico is found in the Archaic period 5000-1500 BC - corn cultivation, basic pottery and stone tools.

The first true civilization was established with the rise of the Olmecs in the Pre-Classic period 1500 BC -300 AD. The Olmecs settled on the Gulf Coast, and little is known about them. They are regarded as the inventors of many aspects of Meso-American cultures including the first calendar and hieroglyphic writing in the Western hemisphere. Archeologists have not settled the relationship between the Olmecs and the Maya, and it is a mystery whether the Maya were their descendants, trading partners, or had another relationship, that is white place in Mayan history. It is agreed that the Maya developed a complex calendar and the most elaborate form of hieroglyphics in America, both based on the Olmec's versions.

No Doomsday in 2012

I’ve been busy compiling two new articles about the 2012 doomsday scenario. This time I’ve investigated why Planet X is not the same thing as the Sumerian planet “Nibiru”, and why a “killer solar flare” will not be possible in the year 2012. This brings the 2012 series up to its fourth edition, and the feedback has been very interesting. Probably the most important thing I want to emphasise about this whole 2012 prophecy stuff is that I am not trying to stamp on anyone’s beliefs. There are many reasons why 2012 may hold significant spiritual or religious meaning, and I am not disputing this in any way.

I want to present the science facts, not the science “facts” that seem to overwhelm many of the end of the world scenarios. Alas, I suspect that I’m fighting a losing battle. I got it wrong, debunking the doomsayers who are doing this for financial gain are not concerned whether their evidence adds up, they are using one tool that I cannot influence. Fear. Sometimes I feel as if I’m beating a dead horse. When planning the next 2012 article, I think “aren’t people getting a little tired of this?“, but then I scan the web to find another 2012 doomsday video on YouTube, another blog talking about the end of the world in four years time. Each one draws on the hysteria behind the possibility of mass death and destruction.

So I feel motivated again, I suddenly want to counter-argue these outrageous claims. This is why I posted two articles in quick succession in the last few days, one about Planet X (again) and another about a flare the Sun could never generate. At the end of most doomsday trails there’s usually book for sale. In principal I have no problem with a publication based on factual claims (they don’t even need to be scientific), but when science is being moulded to fit in with doomsayers beliefs, that is when I feel anger. Fair enough, tell us why the Mayan calendar predicts the end of the world, tell us why the ancient Chinese foretold our fate, even pull out the Bible and tell us why the book of Revelation is “right on” (after all, the Bible talks about the “Great Flood”, why not predict the “Great Fire”?). All this I have no problem with, as long as it is based on facts.

Personally, I don’t believe it, and I don’t believe in prophecies predicting the future with any accuracy (prophets, after all, kept their predictions general, leaving us to fill in the details after the event). But these are my beliefs and opinion, I’m not going to go out of my way to prove, with science, that the Bible is wrong, that the Mayans didn’t have a clue, this would be me stamping on ground that shouldn’t be touched unless I were some expert in archaeology or mythology (all very fine and very interesting fields I might add). So, when the likes of  Marshall Masters compiles the complete works of the 2012 Planet X scenario in a series of videos and a book entitled “Surviving 2012 and Planet X,” is it little wonder people might be a little uptight. After all, this guy is a former CNN science feature producer; surely he checks the facts behind his publications? Unfortunately, all his years immersed in science didn’t teach him to verify the facts he claims to have such authority over. For more information on this, see “2012: No Planet X” and make a note on why the 1983 and 1992 “discoveries” cannot be the same thing (and this is just using the evidence Masters provides in his articulate rendition of the Planet X conspiracy!).

In response to this example (and others), I try to pull up the scientific reasoning behind all this hype. “Reasoning” is the operative word. It’s usually a case of grabbing at any science study that might fit and cannibalizing it to re-enforce a very bizarre theory. So why do these Doomsday theories have such stamina? Surely people can see through the hype by now? Actually, this can be hard. On watching a History Channel documentary about the 2012 prophecies, I could see why people might be worried. Being from the UK, I haven’t experienced US docs quite like this. Between the powerful (and a little frightening) theme tunes, bright imagery and atmospheric cross fades of actors dressed as Nostradamus and ancient Chinese philosophers, this documentary felt more like a blockbuster movie than anything factual. I found myself thinking, “hold on, they might have something here, perhaps the world is going to end! What a fool I’ve been!”, but I quickly recovered and realised that is the power of these prophecies: Fear.

No amount of science articles or reasoning or logic can fight off the air of fear that surrounds the question “What if?” Doomsayers will continue to use this powerful ally to argue 2012 is the end, they will also use it to argue that 2013, 2020, 2030, and the year 3000 will be the end of life as we know it. And the worst thing is, the guys at the end of the doomsday trail will still be making money from book sales and there won’t be a thing science can do about it…

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.

Tsunami stupidity of 2012

The growing harmonic convergence of apocalyptic stupidity that goes under the rubric 2012 or "the Mayan Calendar Prophecy" has not yet reached Y2K proportions. And while it's broken out of the New Agey cult status where it's been fermenting for some years, there are still many in the chattering classes who haven't heard about it. "The end of the world in 2012?" my friend Stanley said. "You mean I have to wait that long?"The cult around the date Dec. 21, 2012—the supposed apocalyptic final day on something referred to knowingly as "The Mayan 'Long Count' Calendar"—has been the subject of fevered fantasies on the net and the free New Age "magazines" given away at health-food stores. But last week Newsweek gave it serious attention, and there's a metastasizing web of 2012 sites, including at least one anti-2012 site, which has a section devoted to debunking the apparently limitless number of gullible airheads who have become 2012 believers.

Even within the web of believer webs there are bitter mini-schisms already: Some believe that Dec. 21, 2012, will mark the end of the world in some kind of fiery apocalypse, planetary collision, gravitational reversal, black-hole disappearance, spontaneous combustion, or planetary rotational reversal of some sort. Then there are those who believe that the end of the old Mayan calendar will be something to look forward to: a transformational moment in the history of creation that will be all good for earth's peeps—a "harmonic convergence"-type thing. (Remember that from the '80s, when a bunch of planets lining up were supposed to work wonders on Earth?) In 2012, human nature will undergo a rebirth, the beginning of a New Age.

And, of course, there's at least one major motion picture of the cataclysm school, Roland Emmerich's 2012, due this November. And, needless to say, the New Age section of your local chain bookstore is bursting with 2012 titles. There's the literate Daniel Pinchbeck's 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl. I was an admirer of Pinchbeck's brave first book, Breaking Open the Head, about his search for shamanic experiences, and must admit I'm disappointed that he seems to have reduced all that mystery and wonder to a single number in 2012—although I'm sure that's not how he would put it.

And, finally, there's the frankly exploitive: everything from Beyond 2012 to (I swear) The Complete Idiot's Guide to 2012 (a bit redundant). Then there are the "2012 survival kits," a 2012 iPhone app, an "official" 2012 store, and other foolishness—the whole Y2K survivalist huckster aspect of 1999 replicating itself.
It's a harmonic convergence all right, a harmonic convergence of ignorance and superstition—a tsunami of stupidity—worthy of the millennial cults of the 19^th century most enjoyably anatomized in Leon Festinger's famous study, When Prophecy Fails, a look at the way end-of-the-world cults grow even stronger after their prophet's end-of-the-world date flies by and the world confoundingly continues to exist.In addition to 2012 the date, 2012 as a concept has its harmonic convergence (or maybe cataclysmic convergence) with an ever-widening spectrum of New Age idiocies. It's like a magnet for mindlessness. There's the literal convergence with "Planet X," for instance.

Apparently, Planet X (aka Nibiru) was spotted by astronomers in the early 1980s in the outermost reaches of the solar system. It has been tracked by infrared observatories; seen lurking around in the Kuiper Belt, and now it is speeding right toward us and will enter the inner solar system in 2012. So what does this mean to us? Well, the effects of the approach of Planet X on our planet will be biblical, and what's more, the effects are being felt right now. Millions, even billions of people will die, global warming will increase; earthquakes, drought, famine, wars, social collapse, even killer solar flares will be caused by Nibiru blasting through the core of the solar system. All of this will happen in 2012, and we must begin preparing for our demise right now.

Sounds scientific to me. I hope I have flashlight batteries for when Nibiru comes "blasting through" the solar system. (As far as I can tell from a brief survey of the subject, "Planet X" is an artifact of some infrared anomalies that may or may not have "planetary" reality. Scientists disagree, but few have formed apocalyptic cults around it.) Of course, this summary leaves out the various UFO versions of Planet X (and 2012) theories in which space aliens are going to manifest themselves, maybe hopping off Planet X during a flyby as either Wise Teachers or Sadistic Destroyers. Spiritual idiocy doesn't afflict only the ignorant, of course. See this recent account of how Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the great rationalist detective Sherlock Holmes, got taken in by spiritualists.

The Maya Cosmic Prophecy

Maya Scholars, in Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, El Salvador and North America, have been watching with amusement and dismay as self-styled experts proclaim that ancient Maya prophets foretold an earth-shattering happening to occur December 21, 2012. This predicted phenomenon gets described in contradictory but often cataclysmic fashion--as an ecological collapse, a sunspot storm, a rare cosmic conjunction of the earth, sun, and the galactic center, a new and awesome stage of our evolution, and even a sudden reversal of the Earth's magnetic field which will erase all our computer drives.

One even predicts the earth's initiation into a Galactic Federation, whose elders have been accelerating our evolution with a "galactic beam" for the last 5000 years. In sum, the world as we know it will suddenly come to a screeching halt. These predictions are alleged to be prophecies by so-called "Ancient Mayans" whose "astronomically precise" calendar supposedly terminates on that date. According to such accounts, these mysterious Maya geniuses appeared suddenly, built an extraordinary civilization, designed in it clues for us, and then suddenly, inexplicably, vanished, as if they had completed their terrestrial mission. These same experts claim special credibility for the Maya prophecies by asserting that these historic sages, with their possible extraterrestrial origins, had tapped into an astonishing esoteric wisdom.

Other stories

Other stories predicting disaster in 2012 says that the new planet, many described as Planet X, a planet / comet (unreasonable), or the planet "Nibiru" will pass close to Earth causing earthquakes and tidal waves and all sorts of destruction , perhaps even turning the earth completely reversed. These are urban legends that have been around for a long time, but for most of the stories of history, this should be happening in the month of May 2003, as any Internet search for "Planet X" will reveal. Apparently what happens is that Planet X supporters, perhaps ashamed or disappointed that 2003 passed without incident, heard about a much more popular story of the Mayan calendar, and decided that 2012 is close enough to 2003 that have the correct date and that the destruction of Planet X Maya may be what is predicted. Legend of the Planet X begins by misinterpretation of astronomical observations, combined with the ancient Sumerian carvings that have been mistakenly interpreted to describe a solar system with ten planets. Why the craftsmen who make carvings on the ancient Sumerian should be considered to have knowledge of the planets are superior to modern astronomy is not convincingly argued. If you are interested in any real science behind the Planet X story, there's no better resource than Phil Plaits's "Bad Astronomy" blog, which went into all the facts, rumors, and sources in detail.

This is one reason people are afraid of 2012. Around 500 years ago, Copernicus Hipparchus confirmed what has been observed in 2200 BC: the axis of the Earth, which rested on the 23.5 °, to complete a full rotation every 25,765 years. This means that in 12,000 years, Christmas will come to Australia in the winter and the northern hemisphere would describe Santa in Bermuda shorts. Astrologers call this period the Great Year, and they were divided into 12 of the month or astrological "old", each about 2147 years old. Every day in accordance with one of the signs of the zodiac. We are in the Age of Pisces, and like the song says, we will soon enter the Age of Aquarius. According to the official delineations from the edge of the modern constellations, we will move into a new era in the year 2600. But there are some disagreements, and some places it on the astrologer in 2595, 2654, or 2638. Some put it much earlier, soon after 2150 or even 2062. However, after news broke about the Mayan calendar, the majority of people leaving the constellation astrology official definition and stated that the Age of Aquarius will begin in the year 2012. So, you can call this the three main reasons why the world will end in 2012, but you have horrible loose with astrology, and you also have to think of several reasons why the dawn of the Age of Aquarius may be brought at the end of the world. I have not found any plausible claim to what may have this effect.

So that's a lot of reasons, weak, though they may be, to predict that we will all die in the year 2012. However, there is one important fact that all the doomsayers seem to forget 2012: Despite all 2012-ish variety of predictions for the end of the world, there are far more stories of doom with a different date. For example, the popular interpretation of Nostradamus to find predictions for the end of the world in July 1999, December 1999, June 2002, and October 2005. This also has said that his writing could mean dead will rise from their graves in the 2000, 2007, or 7000 years. Nostradamus never said anything about 2012.

Many Protestant Christians believe that the end of the world will come in the form of what they call the Rapture, when the righteous will all be taken to heaven. Shaker believe the Rapture will come in the year 1792. Seventh Day Adventist first calculated it would happen in 1843, then when nothing happened, they found errors in their calculations and corrected to 1844. Jehovah's Witnesses make firm predictions for the years 1918, 1925, 1941, 1975, 1984, and 1994. A book was published in 1988 called 88 Reasons the Rapture is in 1988. Some biblical scholars found firm evidence that the biblical Rapture will occur in October 2005. Thousands of Koreans gave all the money and their possessions in preparation for the Rapture on October 28, 1992. Even Sir Isaac Newton made the calculation based on the Scriptures that show the Rapture can not occur before 2060. Some Jewish scholars place the "end of days" through Armageddon in the year 2240. I can not find the 2012 mentioned in this story.

In fact, James Randi's magnum opus publication of An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural lists 44 different end of the world predictions that all came and went was not satisfied. Why do we have to think that the legend of 2012 different? Any examination of the science behind each story, even glib examination, revealed a complete logical foundation. Planet X is only a story, which is the most easily faked as concrete depend on astronomical observations that proved false, the proposed mechanism offers to exactly how this "end of the world" to be achieved, the suspect gravitational collapse. Both the Mayan calendar, or the Age of Aquarius people, has offered any claims to how or why the world will end, only that their particular legend points to a rollover in some ancient calendar. My calendar rolls over every time the ball dropped in New York, and I have not seen this planet of natural disaster, except those who have to mop out drunk at the NYPD's.

Many people tend to put more faith in the ancient neolithic tradition than in the observations of modern science. There is nothing wrong with learning and respect for our predecessors' history for what it is, but when you turn things over and began to believe that scientific knowledge is only decreased the natural world from time to time, you're not doing anyone favors.

Maya says about 2012

They are actually very few, if any. Only one ancient inscription refers to the date 13.0.0.0.0 on the next 2012 years, from a site now called Tortuguero destroyed. The question of our scholars have been wrestling with is whether some hieroglyphs end of the text that explains nothing about what would happen. Several years ago I proposed a very tentative and incomplete reading of damaged flying machine, including the possible use of the verb which means "down" and the name of god, Bolon Yokt.

Most of it was brittle and remain so; I'm not sure I believe much of what I wrote at that time. Recently, my colleague Steve Houston has appointed a flying machine did not even relate to the same date. So there are many ambiguities in the reading of only flying machine and the rhetorical structure of Tortuguero. What we can say with certainty is that the ancient Maya did not leave a clear record or be about 2012 and its meaning. Clearly there is no ancient claim that the world or part of it will end.

What is Doomsday?

Some call it the Day of Resurrection while others call it the end of the day. So what does this mean? Well, for starters, things will change in 2012. Ancient Maya left the code that clearly shows something fierce and apocalyptic is near when their calendar ended. Most analysts believe the code is translated Maya December 21, 2012. 

According to the Maya code, there are 5 major cycles of time, which has passed 4. Each cycle lasted 5125 years, with major damage in the earth and all living things are happening at their end. Now, most of this information comes from what scholars have translated the Maya code, flying machines and calendars. Code predicts that the total destruction of the earth and human beings (the universe) when the big cycle now reaching the end of the thirteenth Baktun this. 

What is known is that we now live in (near the end) of the five major cycles - one in which the Maya live, only 500-4500 years ago. This cycle began in 3114 BC, and ended in December 2012. The driving force behind the doomsday prophecies are Mayan Long Count Calendar. After using three significant calendar, the Long Count Calendar is an extension of the 52-year Calendar Round. 

However, as the Mayans were clever astronomer, there are many prediction of accuracy in astronomy. For example, the earth will be aligned with the galactic plane on December 21, 2012 - something that proved even to this day. This even happens once every 26,000 years. Threats such as Planet X (also known as Nibiru) entered our solar system, timewave zero, asteroids strikes, solar flares, and the polar shift that destroyed all methods to bring sense in Armageddon. 

On the other hand is safer, a New Age has come, says the human race will have the option to enter a period of peace and understanding. More from the viewpoint of astrology, spiritual understanding of this will be considered in need of a new era of positive living. This shift in global consciousness, supported by New Age beliefs that have been re-describe Maya civilization and the confused even the modern humanity, is called Mayanism. Maya is very aware of months, the sun and the cycles of galaxies and the sun continued to rely on God for survival. Most of their culture destroyed by the Spanish during the Inquisition. But what was not destroyed prophesied scientific astronomical events that will happen.

Clear predictions for 2012

Maya does not expect the end times in the year 2012, what exactly do they predict for the year. Many pored over the evidence of monuments scattered Maya said the kingdom did not leave a clear record of predicting that there will be something specific to the year 2012. 

Maya did not pass graphics-though not dated, end-of-the-world scenario, described on page 1100 of the end-around text known as the Dresden Codex. This document describes a world devastated by floods, imagine the scenario in many cultures and may have, on a less apocalyptic scale, by the ancient people (more on the Dresden Codex). Full-scale accuracy is past time led, not directed towards the future. Long Count monuments are events related to the ancestral Maya ruler and the divine.

Maya empire

Maya calendar associated with the seasonal agricultural cycle central to the survival of the ancient. Planet X on Collision Course With Earth some say that's out there: the mysterious Planet X, aka Nibiru, on collision course with the Earth-or at least disrupt the flyby. Could such an unknown planet really going into our road in 2012. 

There are no objects out there, said NASA astrobiologist. That's probably the easiest thing to say. The origins of this theory really ahead of broad interest in 2012. Popularized in part by a woman who claimed to receive messages from extraterrestrials, that Nibiru doomsday originally estimated for the year 2003. If there is a planet or a brown dwarf or anything that would be in the inner solar system three years from now, astronomers will learn about it for decades and will be visible to the naked eye now. 

In 2012 several disaster scenarios, our own sun is the enemy. Our stars are environmentally friendly, it was rumored, would produce deadly eruptions of solar flares, turn on the heat in the Earth. Solar activity waxes and reduced in accordance with the approximately 11-year cycle. Large flares can indeed damage the communications and systems of other mundane, but scientists have no indication of the sun, at least in the short term, will issue a storm powerful enough to fry the planet. It turned out that the sun did not fit the schedule, NASA astronomers said. Hope that this cycle may not reach its peak in 2012, but one or two years later.