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Experts insist Mayas didn't predict doomsday
Source: Agencies |
September 30, 2012, Sunday
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AS the clock winds down to December 21, experts on the Mayan calendar have been racing to convince people that the Mayas didn't predict an apocalypse for the end of this year.
Some experts are saying the Mayas may indeed have made prophecies, just not about the end of the world.
Archeologists, anthropologists and other experts met on Friday in the southern Mexico city of Merida to discuss the implications of the Mayan Long Count calendar, which is made up of 394-year periods called baktuns.
Experts estimate the system starts counting at 3114 BC, and will have run through 13 baktuns, or 5,125 years, around December 21. Experts say 13 was a significant number for the Mayas, and the end of that cycle would be a milestone - but not an end.
Fears that the calendar does point to the end have circulated in recent years. People in that camp believe the Maya may have been privy to impending astronomical disasters that would coincide with 2012, ranging from explosive storms on the surface of the sun that could knock out power grids to a galactic alignment that could trigger a reversal in Earth's magnetic field.
Mexican government archeologist Alfredo Barrera said on Friday that the Mayas did prophesize, but perhaps about more humdrum events like droughts or disease outbreaks. "The Mayas did make prophecies, but not in a fatalistic sense, but rather about events that, in their cyclical conception of history, could be repeated in the future," said Barrera of the National Institute of Anthropology and History.
Experts stressed that the ancient Mayas, whose "classic" culture of writing, astronomy and temple complexes flourished from AD 300 to 900, were extremely interested in future events, far beyond December 21.
"There are many ancient Maya monuments that discuss events far into the future from now," wrote Geoffrey Braswell, an anthropologist at the University of California, San Diego.
Some experts are saying the Mayas may indeed have made prophecies, just not about the end of the world.
Archeologists, anthropologists and other experts met on Friday in the southern Mexico city of Merida to discuss the implications of the Mayan Long Count calendar, which is made up of 394-year periods called baktuns.
Experts estimate the system starts counting at 3114 BC, and will have run through 13 baktuns, or 5,125 years, around December 21. Experts say 13 was a significant number for the Mayas, and the end of that cycle would be a milestone - but not an end.
Fears that the calendar does point to the end have circulated in recent years. People in that camp believe the Maya may have been privy to impending astronomical disasters that would coincide with 2012, ranging from explosive storms on the surface of the sun that could knock out power grids to a galactic alignment that could trigger a reversal in Earth's magnetic field.
Mexican government archeologist Alfredo Barrera said on Friday that the Mayas did prophesize, but perhaps about more humdrum events like droughts or disease outbreaks. "The Mayas did make prophecies, but not in a fatalistic sense, but rather about events that, in their cyclical conception of history, could be repeated in the future," said Barrera of the National Institute of Anthropology and History.
Experts stressed that the ancient Mayas, whose "classic" culture of writing, astronomy and temple complexes flourished from AD 300 to 900, were extremely interested in future events, far beyond December 21.
"There are many ancient Maya monuments that discuss events far into the future from now," wrote Geoffrey Braswell, an anthropologist at the University of California, San Diego.
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