The Maya Doomsday Prophecy

As well as the London Olympics, the next US Presidential Election and the completion of the UK digital TV switchover, there’s another event coming up in 2012 that you might want to mark in your diary – the small matter of the end of the world.

Or, at least according to some interpretations of the Maya Long Count Calendar – a dating system devised in pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica that was found engraved on monuments of the time. If read a certain way – according to certain “experts” since the 1960s – on December 21 or 23 of 2012 a cataclysm of some description will occur that will spell the end of the earth.

The idea has entered popular culture (it’s known as the “2012 Problem”) and spawned all kinds of apocalyptic theories – some of them fanciful, some of them wild and some of them just plain crazy – which have been eagerly propelled by books, TV shows and internet blogs. Is this all just the product of a few over-active and mischievous imaginations? Or is the end really nigh?

It’s a Date! I Think…

You have to wonder how anyone ever remembered their dentist appointment in Maya times, because figuring out the date was a complex process indeed.

Among various calendars devised in pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica, two of the most widely used were the 365-day solar calendar, the Haab’, and the 260-day ceremonial calendar, the Tzolk’in. The Haab’ and the Tzolk’in identified and named the days, but not the years. Usually the combination of a Haab’ date and a Tzolk’in date was sufficient to identify a specific year, because the combination did not occur again for another 52 years, which was above general life expectancy. But those in unusually good health presumably weren’t satisfied, because the Long Count Calendar was devised for measuring dates over that length of time.

The Long Count Calendar counted the number of days passed since a set date – August 11, 3114 BCE in the proleptic Gregorian calendar, or September 6, 3114 BCE in the Julian calendar. It would frequently be inscribed on stela, and other similar such official monuments. The earliest calendar yet discovered, dating from March 15, 162 CE (based on the Gregorian August 11), is on the Tuxtla Statuette, found at La Mojarra in Mexico. Next oldest successively are the calendars found inscribed on a stela at the same site, and on stelas at Abaj Takalik and El Baúl in Guatemala, and Tres Zapotes and Chiapa de Corzo in Mexico.

Good News For People Who Like Bad News

A 13th baktun will occur in December 2012 – that is, the 13th end of 20 katun cycles of 7,200 days on the Maya Long Count Calendar (marking 5,125 years total). This is believed to be the calendar’s end-date, according to interpretations of assorted legends, scriptures, numerological constructions and prophecies.

American archaeologist, anthropologist and author Michael D. Coe was the first scholar to give voice to this theory - in his book The Maya in 1966 - that this might be bad news for civilization. “There is a suggestion,” he wrote, “that Armageddon would overtake the degenerate peoples of the world and all creation on the final day of the thirteenth baktun. Thus… our present universe… would be annihilated…”

Coe was a professional academic making a colourful speculation – many other serious scholars disputed his theory on the simple grounds that the calendar is cyclical, and more likely the count will simply reset itself again at its end date. Most of those who took his idea seriously didn’t have quite such convincing credentials.
 
The End Of The World As We Know It

American writer, philosopher, psychonaut and ethnobotanist Terence Kemp McKenna – a man known to have a bit of a taste for psychedelic drugs – conceived an idea in the 1970s known as “Timewave Zero”, part of his so-called “Novelty Theory”. He claimed that, judging by a certain complex mathematical calculation based on the Long Count Calendar, on December 21st the world will reach a point when “anything and everything imaginable will occur instantaneously.” Which, needless to say, won’t be good.

Another popular idea involves a “geomagnetic reversal” – a change in the orientation of Earth’s magnetic field, triggered by a massive solar flare producing energy equal to 100 million atomic bombs. Other assorted loons have suggested that a large planet, called Nibiru, will collide with or pass by Earth in 2012 – an idea ridiculed by astronomers on the fairly obvious grounds that something big like a rogue planet might already be visible in the night sky, even without a telescope.

A New Age?

The Maya weren’t alone in appearing to prophesize doomsday – practically all mainstream religions make some kind of historical allusion to the apocalypse, even if none of them pin down quite as specifically when they think it will occur.

At least some relief from the doom and gloom can be found in the various New Age interpretations of what will happen at the perceived end of the Maya Long Count Calendar. Many right-on writers posit – in different ways – that rather than suffering Armageddon, in December 2012 the planet and its inhabitants may instead undergo a positive physical or spiritual transformation, beginning a new sociopolitical age of peace, unity and prosperity for the global community. Considering the alternatives, we’re with those guys.

Maya calendar picture (top) by Cherry Pockets; Tuxtla statuette picture (bottom) by Abeand. All rights reserved.
 

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About The Author

Malcolm Jack

Malcolm Jack is a freelance arts and entertainment journalist based in Glasgow, Scotland. He graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 2004 with an MA Honours Degree in History.

Last three pieces by this author: Latin Lovers: Bettany Hughes Helps Boris Johnson Launch 'Classics for Schools' , Egypt's SCA Avoids Politics... NOT!, Ancient World in London Bloggers Challenge 3: Should the British Museum Return the Rosetta Stone to Egypt?

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