sempaispellcheck wrote:Invdr_zim wrote:It's the end of the world as we know it!
And how do you feel?
patrik702 wrote:Did the Mayan calendar have the date as 12/21 of 21/12? of 2012.
I don't think it had either. The 21st of December, 2012, on the Mayan calendar, is 4 Ahau 3 Kankin (if my interpretation is correct).
The short-count calendar (which patrik referenced) has nothing to do with the significance of the 21st, and he was got it right (although in my experience the Haab is typically written before the Tzolkin).
It is the long-count calendar that carries significance. Since the Mayan short-term calendar only allowed for counting of 52 year periods due to it's cyclical nature, they also had the long-count that counted days in much greater periods. December 21st, 2012 is written as 13.0.0.0.0 in the Mayan long-count calendar.
This is where the end of the world theories start to come in, via a mixing of fact and myth. In reality, Mayan people
STILL EXIST and some still follow the Mayan calendrical system, although many if not most have converted to Spanish systems along with Catholicism. In truth, 13.0.0.0.0 is most analogous to January 1, 2000 in our system - the start of a new big level of counting years. Interpretations of Mayan texts have suggested that the end of a baktun and the start of a new one is a period of celebration.
However, Mayan mythology suggests that they believe that at the end of each baktun, the world is destroyed and a new, more advanced world is created in its place. This is analogous to suggesting that on January 1, 2000, Jesus will reappear and the apocalypse will ravage the western world. As always, people will be attracted to the novel idea of destruction and interesting calendrical dates, but the world will not be ending on Friday. 13.0.0.0.1 will roll around on Saturday just as expected, which will be nice as it happens to be my birthday.
