Week 7: 2012, myths and legends

Carolina

Marisol
 According to Maya’s calendar, the end of earth: 2012

The end of earth: the 23rd of December 2012. Some pessimistic even took advantages of the initial confusion about the closeness of the asteroid 2004MN4 the same year, to make it believable.

The Mayas developed a sophisticated mathematician system on base 20, and they even understood the zero (0) concept. They were very interested about the nature cycles and the universe, they were great astronomies and their way to seize time was not related to the moon cycles nor to the seasons; in fact was it synchronized with the sun year. Apparently they were conscious of the discrepancy that exists, but on the contrary of the Mediterranean civilizations they didn’t try to correct it.

After the Spanish invasion in the XVI century the Mayas calendar was not used anymore until the decade of 1990 when archeologists achieved to reconstruct it despite some divergences between the experts. In that moment it was thought to have three Maya’s calendar: the TZOLKIN used for religious proposes (divided in 20 periods of 13 days), the HAAB used for civil proposes (divided in 18 periods of 20 days each, plus 5 extra days for ending the prayers, all equals 365 days) and finally the well known as “Long count” that simply counts the days since a date of beginning. The experts believe that date is the 13^th of August of 3114 b.C, but there are arguments between them about this.

Whenever the date is ¿Why is it this one and not another one? Nobody knows. The only thing that seems clear is that the reference time is before at least 1.200 years of the first evidence of Maya’s culture and 3.000 years before any kind of calendar system was invented. It is believed that the way they used to count the days (that was divided in 5 parts) wasn’t flexible, it was banned to 1.872 millions of days and so taking into account the initial date, this calendar will attempt its end by the 23^rd of December 2012.

This point is where every kind of predictions comes from. What people ignore is that Mayas had a universe adscript to daily cycles, moon cycles, season cycles and sun cycles. Thus, it has lot of sense to think that this “Long count” calendar, similar to others (like the Chinese), is itself cyclical. There is no evidence that the Mayas associated the end of the calendar with the end of the time, and  nobody would think that the initial date was the day everything was created. So, it is apprehensible to think that time for Mayas is a cycle. In conclusion, the end of the world is not in 2012, it is just a misinterpretation of the Maya's calendar which if we are right would start over again.

Según Calendario Maya, Fin del Mundo: 2012 - SPE

Laura

21st DECEMBER, 2012 - 31st DECEMBER, 999

A description of what happened at the end of year 999 is done in the book: “Doomsday 1999 A.D.”, written by Charles Berlitz. Some excerpts of the book are shown below:

“As the year 999 neared its end a sort of mass hysteria took hold of Europe. All forms of activity became affected by the specter of impending doom…Men forgave each other their debts, husbands and wives confessed suspected and unsuspected infidelities to each other and were mutually forgiven, poachers proclaimed their unlawful poachings to the lords of manors and then, although permitted by the nobles to continue their punishable actions, did not do so, demanding only forgiveness.

(…)

When December arrived mass psychosis and fanaticism appeared as well, springing from the dark side of human nature. Groups of flagellants roamed through the countryside, scourging each other and congregating in the market places of towns where they left trails of blood leading up to the doors of the churches. (…)There was a wave of suicides as people sought to punish themselves in advance of Doomsday or simply could not stand the pressure of waiting for Judgement Day.

(…)

When the Te Deum had been sung, men and women fell in each other's arms, laughing and crying and exchanging the kiss of peace. Thus ended the thousandth year after the birth of Christ." (From: http://www.billennium.com/html/main.cgi?sub=42)

There are many myths, stories and legends around December 2012, prophecies, some of them will be listed below.

1. December 2012 marks the end of a cycle of the Mesoamerican Long Count Calendar, which has been associated with the Maya Civilization.
2. Nostradamus pointed the entry if the Age of Aquarius after 21st December 2012
3. Galactic alignment (John Major Jenkins)
4. Geomagnetic Reversal
5. Planet X or Nibiru
6. Web Bot Project

I did not specify what each theory says, however if you, reader, want to read more about the myths, legends and stories named, you can follow this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_phenomenon

There is much advertising around 2012: Discovery and History Channel documentaries, a famous movie called: “2012”, web pages, books, articles…I do not think that the world will end in 2012, in fact, I will put here a part from Bible for Christians who believe in 2012 as the end: "However, no one knows the day or hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself. Only the Father knows.”(Mark 13:32).


So, if you want to forgive, to love, to be consistent with your beliefs, do it now, do not wait till 20th December 2012; I am almost sure, there will be a social problem that day, because of the mental weakness, and how easily is influence people with advertising, I hope that day to be as normal as other day, but surely, news, media, and other kind of publicity will impact people and it will not be a normal day, such as many “theories” say.