The people of the Maya civilization had been recognized in ancient history until the present-day millennium due to their immense contribution in math and astronomy. Their society once flourished in the present-day location of Southern Mexico, where the Yucatan peninsula is situated, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador, and artifacts of the ancient Maya civilization were discovered from these places. Due to this geographical fact, the remnants of the past civilization were adapted by the existing culture. An example of this adaptation is the Mayan hammock, which is now adapted by Mexico, particularly in Yucatan. However, despite the several arts and cultural adaptations from the Maya civilization, there is one that deems phenomenal due to beliefs that it surrounds an apocalyptic event.
I’m sure you’ve heard of the doomsday or the December 21, 2012 end of the world prediction. The 2012 end of the world scare started with the controversial Long Count calendar developed by the Mayans thousands of years ago. The Long Count calendar is just one of the three foremost calendars used by the Mayans. The other two are the Tzolk’in (the 260-day cycle) and the Haab (356-day solar cycle). The Long Count, on the other hand, is based on the time period of 5125.36 years, approximately 1872000 days, which all in all referred to as the Great Cycle. The final date set in this Long Count falls on December 21, 2012. Doomsday believers consider that the Mayans had somehow predicted the end of mankind and this brought attention and fright to the entire world. And so, to justify the odds of its occurrence, many have made an effort to understand how to read the Mayan Long Count calendar and come up with their own interpretation of the doomsday prediction.
There are five interlocking cycles noted in the Long Count calendar:
- one day – kin
- 20 days – uinal
- 360 days – tun
- 7,200 days – katun
- 144,000 days – baktun
An example of a date in the Maya Calendar is 12.17.15.17.0. This should be read from left to right, baktun being first in line followed by katun and so forth. Anthropologists collaborated to compare the Mayan Long Count to the Gregorian date conversion to identify when was the beginning of the Great Cycle and they found out the date was Aug. 13, 3114 B.C. Further computations were done, which brought them to the end of the Great Cycle which is on 13.0.0.0.0 or equivalent to December 21, 2012 in the Gregorian calendar, the same date format we know of today.
However, contemporary Mayan scholars have dismissed this doomsday theory, explaining to the public that the end date in the Long Count calendar simply implies a New Year cycle from the beginning of day one kin and that people shouldn’t panic because nothing apocalyptic was assured to occur.