2012 End-of-the-World Countdown Based on Mayan Calendar Starts Today
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2012 End-of-the-World Countdown Based on Mayan Calendar Starts Today
By Suzan Clarke | ABC News Blogs – 1 hr 34 mins ago
The countdown to the apocalypse is on.
We’re one year away from Dec. 21, 2012, the date that the ancient Mayan Long Count calendarallegedly marked as the end of an era that would reset the date to zero and signal the end of humanity.
But will it?
There have been many end of times predictions over the years. Christian radio host Harold Campingfaced widespread ridicule when his predictions that the world would end twice this year – on May 21, and then on Oct. 21 – failed to materialize.
But in the flurry of doomsday predictions – there have been similar dire warnings about the world coming to an end from various cultures, including Native Americans, the Chinese, Egyptians and even the Irish – the supposed Mayan prophecy seems to have held the most sway with believers.
The Mayan civilization, which reached its height from 300 A.D. to 900 A.D., had a talent for astronomy. Advanced mathematics and primitive astronomy flourished, creating what many have called the most accurate calendar in the world.
The Mayans predicted a final event that included a solar shift, a Venus transit and violent earthquakes.
Their Long Count calendar begins in 3,114 B.C., marking time in roughly 394-year periods known as Baktuns. Thirteen was a significant, sacred number for the Mayas, and they wrote that the 13th Baktun ends on Dec. 21, 2012.
The doomsday theories stem from a stone tablet discovered in the 1960s at the archaeological site of Tortuguero in the Gulf of Mexico state of Tabasco that describes the return of a Mayan god at the end of a 13th period.
“The Maya are viewed by many westerners as exotic folks that were supposed to have had some special, secret knowledge,” said Mayan scholar Sven Gronemeyer. “What happens is that our expectations and fears get projected on the Maya calendar.”
Gronemeyer, of La Trobe University in Australia, compares the supposed Mayan prophecies to the “Y2K” hype, when people feared all computer systems would crash when the new millennium began on Jan. 1, 2000.
For some reason, Gronemeyer says, people have ignored evidence that dates beyond 2012 were recorded.
The blogosphere exploded with more speculation when Mexico’s archaeology institute acknowledged on Nov. 24 a second reference to Dec. 21, 2012, on a brick found at other ruins.
“Human beings seem to be attracted by apocalyptic ideas and always assume the worst,” Gronemeyer said.
Believers have taken the end-of-the world fears to the Internet with hundreds of thousands of websites and blogs. Yet others are capitalizing on the heightened interest. Films depicting the end of the world – including the 2009 movie, “2012? – are contributing to the mounting hype as well as to misinformation, experts say.
In southern Mexico, the heart of Maya territory, a yearlong celebration is planned.
Mexico’s tourism agency expects to draw 52 million visitors by next year only to the regions of Chiapas, Yucatan, Quintana Roo, Tabasco and Campeche. All of Mexico usually lures about 22 million foreigners in a year.
It’s selling the date, the Winter Solstice in the coming year, as a time of renewal. Many archeologists argue that the 2012 reference on a 1,300-year-old stone tablet only marks the end of a cycle in the Mayan calendar.
“The world will not end. It is an era,” said Yeanet Zaldo, a tourism spokeswoman for the Caribbean state of Quintana Roo, home to Cancun. “For us, it is a message of hope.”
For those who are thinking about how to spend what could be their last year on earth, here’s another message of hope: According to recent research, the mythological date of the “end of days” may be off by 50 to 100 years.
To convert the ancient Mayan calendar to the Gregorian (or modern) calendar, scholars use a numerical value (called the GMT). But Gerardo Aldana, a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, has said the data supporting the widely-adopted conversion factor may be invalid.
Aldana isn’t the only detractor.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration – yes, that’s NASA - has also weighed in on the issue.
The agency’s scientists posted answers to the most popular questions about the end-of-times theory associated with the prophecy.
“Remember the Y2K scare? It came and went without much of a whimper because of adequate planning and analysis of the situation. Impressive movie special effects aside, Dec. 21, 2012, won’t be the end of the world as we know,” the 2009 web page post says.
The answers addressed questions about whether there were any known threats to the Earth and the truth about the calendar.
One of answers posted was to the question of the possible approach of Nibiru (or Planet X or Eris), a supposed wayward planet that is said could pose a threat to Earth. The answer was a definitive rejection of the idea.
“Nibiru and other stories about wayward planets are an Internet hoax,” scientists wrote. “There is no factual basis for these claims. If Nibiru or Planet X were real and headed for an encounter with the Earth in 2012, astronomers would have been tracking it for at least the past decade, and it would be visible by now to the naked eye. Obviously, it does not exist. Eris is real, but it is a dwarf planet similar to Pluto that will remain in the outer solar system; the closest it can come to Earth is about 4 billion miles.”
ABC News’ Susan Donaldson James and The Associated Press contributed to this story.
http://www.webexhibits.org/calendars/calendar-mayan.html
Among their other accomplishments, the ancient Mayas invented a calendar of remarkable accuracy and complexity. At right is the ancient Mayan Pyramid Chichen Itza, Yucatan, Mexico. The Pyramid of Kukulkan at Chichén Itzá, constructed circa 1050 was built during the late Mayan period, when Toltecs from Tula became politically powerful. The pyramid was used as a calendar: four stairways, each with 91 steps and a platform at the top, making a total of 365, equivalent to the number of days in a calendar year.
El Castillo. Chichen Itza, Yucatan, Mexico.
This Mesoamerican step pyramid’s platform, along with its four stairways of 91 steps, totals 365, or the number of days in a calendar year.
The Maya calendar was adopted by the other Mesoamerican nations, such as the Aztecs and the Toltec, which adopted the mechanics of the calendar unaltered but changed the names of the days of the week and the months. An Aztec calendar stoneis shown above right.
The Maya calendar uses three different dating systems in parallel, the Long Count, the Tzolkin (divine calendar), and theHaab (civil calendar). Of these, only the Haab has a direct relationship to the length of the year.
Aztec Calendar.
The Aztec calendar was an adaptation of the Mayan calendar. It consisted of a 365-day agricultural calendar, as well as a 260-day sacred calendar. (This is a digital composite. Color added for visibility.)
A typical Mayan date looks like this: 12.18.16.2.6, 3 Cimi 4 Zotz.
12.18.16.2.6 is the Long Count date. 3 Cimi is the Tzolkin date. 4 Zotz is the Haab date.
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What is the Long Count?
The Long Count is really a mixed base-20/base-18 representation of a number, representing the number of days since the start of the Mayan era. It is thus akin to the Julian Day Number.
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:
| uinal | (1 uinal = 20 kin = 20 days) |
| tun | (1 tun = 18 uinal = 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 uinal are numbered from 0 to 17. |
| The baktun are numbered from 1 to 13. |
Although they are not part of the Long Count, the Mayas had names for larger time spans. The following names are sometimes quoted, although they are not ancient Maya terms:
| 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 |
The alautun is probably the longest named period in any calendar.
When did the Long Count Start?
Logically, the first date in the Long Count should be 0.0.0.0.0, but as the baktun (the first component) are numbered from 1 to 13 rather than 0 to 12, this first date is actually written 13.0.0.0.0.
The authorities disagree on what 13.0.0.0.0 corresponds to in our calendar. I have come across three possible equivalences:
| 13.0.0.0.0 = 8 Sep 3114 BC (Julian) = 13 Aug 3114 BC (Gregorian) |
| 13.0.0.0.0 = 6 Sep 3114 BC (Julian) = 11 Aug 3114 BC (Gregorian) |
| 13.0.0.0.0 = 11 Nov 3374 BC (Julian) = 15 Oct 3374 BC (Gregorian) |
Assuming one of the first two equivalences, the Long Count will again reach 13.0.0.0.0 on 21 or 23 December AD 2012 – a not too distant future.
The date 13.0.0.0.0 may have been the Mayas’ idea of the date of the creation of the world.
What is the Tzolkin?
The Tzolkin date is a combination of two “week” lengths.
While our calendar uses a single week of seven days, the Mayan calendar used two different lengths of week:
- a numbered week of 13 days, in which the days were numbered from 1 to 13
- a named week of 20 days, in which the names of the days were:
| 0. Ahau | 1. Imix | 2. Ik | 3. Akbal | 4. Kan |
| 5. Chicchan | 6. Cimi | 7. Manik | 8. Lamat | 9. Muluc |
| 10. Oc | 11. Chuen | 12. Eb | 13. Ben | 14. Ix |
| 15. Men | 16. Cib | 17. Caban | 18. Etznab | 19. Caunac |
The diagram at left shows the day symbols, in the same order as the table above.
As the named week is 20 days and the smallest Long Count digit is 20 days, there is synchrony between the two; if, for example, the last digit of today’s Long Count is 0, today must be Ahau; if it is 6, it must be Cimi. Since the numbered and the named week were both “weeks,” each of their name/number change daily; therefore, the day after 3 Cimi is not 4 Cimi, but 4 Manik, and the day after that, 5 Lamat. The next time Cimi rolls around, 20 days later, it will be 10 Cimi instead of 3 Cimi. The next 3 Cimi will not occur until 260 (or 13 x 20) days have passed. This 260-day cycle also had good-luck or bad-luck associations connected with each day, and for this reason, it became known as the “divinatory year.”
The “years” of the Tzolkin calendar are not counted.
When did the Tzolkin Start?
Long Count 13.0.0.0.0 corresponds to 4 Ahau. The authorities agree on this.
What is the Haab?
The Haab was the civil calendar of the Mayas. It consisted of 18 “months” of 20 days each, followed by 5 extra days, known asUayeb. This gives a year length of 365 days.
The names of the month were:
| 1. Pop | 7. Yaxkin | 13. Mac |
| 2. Uo | 8. Mol | 14. Kankin |
| 3. Zip | 9. Chen | 15. Muan |
| 4. Zotz | 10. Yax | 16. Pax |
| 5. Tzec | 11. Zac | 17. Kayab |
| 6. Xul | 12. Ceh | 18. Cumku |
In contrast to the Tzolkin dates, the Haab month names changed every 20 days instead of daily; so the day after 4 Zotz would be 5 Zotz, followed by 6 Zotz … up to 19 Zotz, which is followed by 0 Tzec.
The days of the month were numbered from 0 to 19. This use of a 0th day of the month in a civil calendar is unique to the Maya system; it is believed that the Mayas discovered the number zero, and the uses to which it could be put, centuries before it was discovered in Europe or Asia.
The Uayeb days acquired a very derogatory reputation for bad luck; known as “days without names” or “days without souls,” and were observed as days of prayer and mourning. Fires were extinguished and the population refrained from eating hot food. Anyone born on those days was “doomed to a miserable life.”
The years of the Haab calendar are not counted.
The length of the Tzolkin year was 260 days and the length of the Haab year was 365 days. The smallest number that can be divided evenly by 260 and 365 is 18,980, or 365×52; this was known as the Calendar Round. If a day is, for example, “4 Ahau 8 Cumku,” the next day falling on “4 Ahau 8 Cumku” would be 18,980 days or about 52 years later. Among the Aztec, the end of a Calendar Round was a time of public panic as it was thought the world might be coming to an end. When the Pleaides crossed the horizon on 4 Ahau 8 Cumku, they knew the world had been granted another 52-year extension.
When did the Haab Start?
Long Count 13.0.0.0.0 corresponds to 8 Cumku. The authorities agree on this.
Did the Mayas Think a Year Was 365 Days?
Although there were only 365 days in the Haab year, the Mayas were aware that a year is slightly longer than 365 days, and in fact, many of the month-names are associated with the seasons; Yaxkin, for example, means “new or strong sun” and, at the beginning of the Long Count, 1 Yaxkin was the day after the winter solstice, when the sun starts to shine for a longer period of time and higher in the sky. When the Long Count was put into motion, it was started at 7.13.0.0.0, and 0 Yaxkin corresponded with Midwinter Day, as it did at 13.0.0.0.0 back in 3114 B.C.E. The available evidence indicates that the Mayas estimated that a 365-day year precessed through all the seasons twice in 7.13.0.0.0 or 1,101,600 days.
We can therefore derive a value for the Mayan estimate of the year by dividing 1,101,600 by 365, subtracting 2, and taking that number and dividing 1,101,600 by the result, which gives us an answer of 365.242036 days, which is slightly more accurate than the 365.2425 days of the Gregorian calendar.
(This apparent accuracy could, however, be a simple coincidence. The Mayas estimated that a 365-day year precessed through all the seasons twice in 7.13.0.0.0 days. These numbers are only accurate to 2-3 digits. Suppose the 7.13.0.0.0 days had corresponded to 2.001 cycles rather than 2 cycles of the 365-day year, would the Mayas have noticed?)
In ancient times, the Mayans had a tradition of a 360-day year. But by the 4th century B.C.E. they took a different approach than either Europeans or Asians. They maintained three different calendars at the same time. In one of them, they divided a 365-day year into eighteen 20-day months followed by a five-day period that was part of no month. The five-day period was considered to be unlucky.
December 22, 2011 at 1:07 am
The Mayan calendar only went as far as 2012. It was not a prediction for armageddon. Their number system simply runs out.
December 22, 2011 at 9:12 am
You are absolutely right, The Armageddon belong to God; Thy Will Be Done.