Community | October 14, 2009 | 7 comments

'2012 is not the end of the world!' Mayan elder insists

source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/6300744/2012-is-not-the-end-of-the-w...

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hpseaton

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/6300744/2012-...

The year 2012 will not bring the end of the world, a Mayan elder has insisted, despite claims that a Mayan calendar shows that time will "run out" on December 21 of that year.

Apolinario Chile Pixtun is tired of being bombarded with frantic questions about the end of the world. "I came back from England last year and, man, they had me fed up with this stuff," he said.

A significant time period for the Mayans does end on the date, and enthusiasts have found a series of astronomical alignments they say coincide in 2012, including one that happens roughly only once every 25,800 years.

But most archaeologists, astronomers and Mayans say the only thing likely to hit Earth is a meteor shower of New Age philosophy, pop astronomy, internet doomsday rumours and TV specials such as one on the History Channel which mixes "predictions" from Nostradamus and the Mayans and asks: "Is 2012 the year the cosmic clock finally winds down to zero days, zero hope?"

Still, things are only likely to get worse for Mr Pixtun. Next month Hollywood's "2012" opens in cinemas, featuring earthquakes, meteor showers and a tsunami dumping an aircraft carrier on the White House.

At Cornell University, Ann Martin, who runs the "Curious? Ask an Astronomer" website, says people are scared.

"It's too bad that we're getting e-mails from fourth-graders who are saying that they're too young to die," Ms Martin said. "We had a mother of two young children who was afraid she wouldn't live to see them grow up."

Mr Pixtun, a Guatemalan, says the doomsday theories spring from Western, not Mayan ideas.

But hysteria surrounding 2012 does have some grains of archaeological basis. One of them is Monument Six.

Found at an obscure ruin in southern Mexico during highway construction in the 1960s, the stone tablet almost did not survive; the site was largely paved over and parts of the tablet were looted.

The inscription describes something that is supposed to occur in 2012 involving Bolon Yokte, a mysterious Mayan god associated with both war and creation. However, erosion and a crack in the stone make the end of the passage almost illegible.

Guillermo Bernal, an archaeologist at Mexico's National Autonomous University, believes the eroded message is: "He will descend from the sky".

But Mr Bernal also notes there are other inscriptions at Mayan sites for dates far beyond 2012 - including one that roughly translates into the year 4772.

The Mayan civilization, based in modern day Mexico and Central America, reached its height from 300 AD to 900 AD and had a talent for astronomy
  1. groups:
    Community,   Astrology
  2. tags:
    2012,  Mayan Calendar,  Apocolypse
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7 comments // '2012 is not the end of the world!' Mayan elder insists

  • RFIDemocracy
    • 0
      RFIDemocracy  

    • I concur. I pay no attention to such claptrap. Climate change and 'broken spear' incidents are real concerns. I pay no heed to superstitious gobbley-gook from shaman of yore.

      *A NASA scientist has said that the prophecy by the ancient Mayans that the world might end in the year 2012, is nothing but a hoax, which is only helping the promoters of the conspiracy theory to rake in huge profits.

      NASA scientist David Morrison’s concise summary of the claims and the scientific response to the widespread Internet belief that December 21, 2012, will be doomsday for planet Earth, determines that the whole thing is nothing but a hoax.

      For several months, NASA and many astronomers have received increasingly worried letters and e-mails from members of the public about the possibility, widely touted on the Internet that the world will end in 2012.

      Many mechanisms for doomsday are being proposed, including a collision with a fictional planet called Nibiru, deadly activity on the surface of the Sun that lashes out at Earth, alignments with the center of our galaxy, and many more.

      David Morrison has coined the term “cosmophobia” - fear of the cosmos - for these concerns, and has seen a huge increase in the phenomenon this year.

      Dr. Morrison, a world-renowned expert on the solar system (and asteroid impacts), also serves as the public scientist for NASA’s “Ask an Astrobiologist” service, where he answers questions for the public.

      He has received so many questions about 2012 and the end of the world, that he felt he had to investigate and set the record straight.

      One of his most interesting findings is that the distributors of the science fiction motion picture “2012”, to be released this November, are purposely feeding the flames of the Internet panic, in what is called a viral marketing campaign.

      They have created fake science websites and encouraging people to search for “2012” on the Web, all for the sake of some publicity for the movie, the findings indicate.

      Also, most of the sites based on the 2012 theory are full of nonsense and misunderstanding, often by people who have written books on coming disaster that they are trying to sell, the findings reveal.

    • 3 years ago
  • hpseaton
    • 0
      hpseaton  
    • RFIDemocracy:

      Maybe if some of these people would read books and articles BEFORE Hollywood decides a topic is important they wouldn't spend time getting their information from half-wit 'talking heads'. Sigh.

    • 3 years ago
  • rwahrens
    • 0
      rwahrens  
    • RFIDemocracy:

      Maybe they can't understand what they read. Reading comprehension is a skill that must be learned.

      Anybody that thinks that superstitions from a culture that's been dead over five hundred years might be true isn't the brightest bulb on the chandelier to start with.

    • 3 years ago
  • rwahrens
    • 0
      rwahrens  

    • I think it's a story that bears repeating.

      Why modern, educated Americans should put ANY stock in the superstitious dead religion of a failed civilization is a mystery to me.

      Haven't we got enough religious superstitions of our own? Why borrow from someone else's superstition?

      Madness.

      Folks its just a calendar. Shapes carved in a rock that hold no meaning to any living person save a few scholars. Even modern Mayans can't read the old carvings any more.

      The belief that ANY human words, whether carved in a rock or printed on paper, would have any significance to the existence of the universe, or even this planet, is sheer lunacy.

      Grow up.

    • 3 years ago
  • Manuel_Trujillo
  • hpseaton
  • hpseaton
    • 0
      hpseaton  

    • What the hell is it about people craving the 'end of the world' scenario? The Mayans created such an amazing civilization, yet this is what most people know them for. Sigh.

    • 3 years ago

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