2012: Judgment Day or Disaster Movie Excuse?

Posted by Rolf Joho on April 4th, 2010 filed in Global Warming


Twenty twelve is anticpated to be a momentous year, the very first winter youth Olympics is going to be held in January, the United States will hold a presidential election and the UK are going to commemorate the diamond jubilee of Queen Elizabeth. In case you are awaiting 2013 you should not get your hopes up, considering that based on some prophecies, everything is due to end on December 21. For those who love Christmas, make the most of this season and the following, since based on the Mayan calendar, they’ll be your last. Maybe.

Before Europeans appeared in meso America the population utilized a complicated mixture of calendars to record their days.  The Haab or solar calendar, both a timepiece and Mayan art form, was constructed from eighteen 20 day months and also a interval of five days named Wayeb to bring the total to 365.

The Tzolkin however was a cycle of 260 days, 13 multiplied by 20.  No-one is aware quite the reason 260 days were picked, though it appears the numbers 13 and twenty were both significant to these early cultures. There’s a probability that it was associated with the amount of time between a woman’s initial skipped period and the birth of  her offspring, and made it easier to estimate when a baby might be born, however various other theories about crop harvesting and zodiac observations may be equally correct. Nearly all dates could be set by a combination of the Haab and Tzolin, the cycle would come together once every 52 years, that is roughly once in every life time.

To look at periods longer than fifty-two years the Mayans used a different method that we now call the Long Count calendar. This technique is found in both Olmec and Aztec art and wasn’t invented by the Maya. Dates run forward from the mythical day zero, the date of the introduction of the existing world. Just like all civilizations the base units were days, with twenty days in a uinal and 18 uinals in the tun (more or less a year). A K’atun consisted of twenty tuns and 20 of these a b’ak’tun. Once again the number thirteen is significant and quite a few inscriptions in Mayan artwork display the date changing at the end of 13 b’ak’tuns and spoke of incidents that occur on this particular date. This lead to  hypotheses that the Mayans anticipated something important would occur on the final day of the 13th B’ak’tun. That day has been calculated to be 21st or 23 December 2012. What exactly can we expect?

Well according to several scholars nothing whatsoever. There are several references to something going on about that point in time in inscriptions, however nothing very concrete, so it is really surprising just how much publicity 2012 is creating. Many state there may a spiritual evolution, while others refer to a momentous galactic alignment, although this is based on the positioning of the galactic equator, and that can’t be established, this doesn’t appear very likely. But others worry about planet Niburu.

Collision with planet X (or Niburu) has been forecast since the year 2003, yet any planet near enough to be in collision with the Earth in 2012 would certainly now become plainly visible to astronomers in the evening sky. Sadly this fictional collision has become confused in the media with the real and anticipated approach of a giant asteroid referred to as Eros that is expected to pass our planet in 2012. Eros is greater than the asteroid that we think wiped out the dinosaurs 65 millions years back but since it will never end up being nearer than 70 times the distance from the moon, it’s not likely to do any damage.

Looking at the Mayan calendar is a great reason to consider the way we measure time and the reason why, to be aware of the solar cycles that still dominate our life and to enjoy the artwork of an society. As to preparing for the end of the world, that still appears slightly premature.

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