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SALT LAKE CITY -- One year from today, the world will end. That is, at least, according to rumors circulating around Dec. 21 2012.
Where do we get that date? The Mayan calendar apparently ends on that date, during winter solstice.
In the last few years there has been growing buzz over when the world will end. Mostly recently, the California radio-evangelist Harold Camping predicted the rapture would be May 21, 2011 -a day that came and went much like any other.
But one expert says that the end of the world prediction associated with the end of the Mayan calendar is just one big misunderstanding. According to Mark Wright, professor of Ancient Scripture at BYU and Mayanist, the myth started with the Tortuguero monument located in Southern Mexico.
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"Ten years ago some archeologists tried reading that monument and they misread it. And they thought it prophesied about some event where God would descend," he said.
Wright says people believe the monument holds some sort of mystery and that there is a lot of misunderstanding concerning the Maya people.
"They're conflating the Maya myths, with some of the Aztec myths, and they mixed in some new age stuff, and even some eastern philosophy," Wright said.
Some of these myths include that Mayans predicted the end of the world, galactic forces will destroy the world and the Maya calendar will end in 2012. But Wright debunks some of those myths.
A cylindrical calendar keeping track of the days since the beginning of the Mayan era. "Long Count calendar."
- Begins with "Day Zero."
- 1,872,000 days.
- 5,125.37 years
- Last day of Long Count calendar.
- Calendar will roll back to Day Zero.
Information: National Geographic
Myth #1: The Maya people predicted the end of the world"The Maya themselves never predicted any cataclysm; they never predicted any kind of end of the world," Wright said.
What they did do, however, is record time on a different scale than nearly every other civilization. They recorded it according to the "Long Count," or eras, one of which will end in 2012.
Myth #2: Galactic forces will destroy the world
According to Wright, there is no ancient culture that maintains such beliefs. He adds that contemporary science contradicts such predictions.
"Scientifically there's nothing to it," Wright said. "People will have these fears that Los Angeles will break off due to a massive cataclysm and end up next to San Francisco. But scientifically there's no basis to that. There's no basis to solar flares wiping the face of the earth. What's going to happen on December 21st isn't going to be any more or less than what's been happening every year since 1983 and will continue to happen until 2019."
Myth #3: The Maya calendar will end in 2012
On December 21, 2012 the Maya calendar will simply begin a new year: 13.0.0.0.0.
In the same fashion we change our calendars and begin a new year after Dec. 31, the Mayan calendar will reset and begin counting again, only in a much longer cycle than the 365-day cycle to which we adhere.
Email:niyamba@ksl.com
