2012: Six End-of-the-World Myths Debunked Myth 6

2012 MYTH 6

Maya Had Bright Predictions for 2012

If the Maya didn't apprehend the end of time in 2012, what absolutely did they adumbrate for that year?

Many advisers who've pored over the broadcast affirmation on Maya monuments say the authority didn't leave a bright almanac admiration that annihilation specific would appear in 2012.

The Maya did canyon down a graphic—though undated—end-of-the-world scenario, declared on the final page of a circa-1100 altercation accepted as the Dresden Codex. The certificate describes a apple destroyed by flood, a book absurd in abounding cultures and apparently experienced, on a beneath apocalyptic scale, by age-old peoples (more on the Dresden Codex).

Aveni, the archaeoastronomer, said the book is not meant to be apprehend literally—but as a assignment about animal behavior.

He likens the cycles to our own New Year period, if the closing of an era is accompanied by corybantic activities and stress, followed by a activation period, if abounding humans yield banal and boldness to activate active better.

In fact, Aveni says, the Maya weren't abundant for predictions.

"The accomplished timekeeping calibration is actual accomplished directed, not approaching directed," he said. "What you apprehend on these monuments of the Long Count are contest that affiliated Maya rulers with ancestors and the divine.

"The further aback you can bulb your roots in abysmal time the bigger altercation you can accomplish that you're legit," Aveni said. "And I anticipate that's why these Maya rulers were application Long Count time.

"It's not about a anchored anticipation about what's traveling to happen."