Yesterday's News: The End of the World

12th May 2012

This day in history...The discovery of a missing Mayan Calendar piece disproves 2012 Armageddon

The Doomsday predictions for the 21st of December 2012 being the End of the World have now long gone. Fortunately we are still here! And that should come at no surprise, given the substantial amount of evidence disproving the 2012 apocalypse. Today's event of the discovery of the missing Mayan evidence is possibly one of the most important revelations in terms of the supposed Armageddon. So what was the discovery? And what of the Doomsday Preppers now?

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The Mayan Calendar

The Discovery

During an archaeological trip in Guatemala in 2010, PhD student at the University of Boston, Franco Rossi came across faded paint on a wall. He and a fellow student dug through the 1,200 year old mud and found a great expanse of paintings and engravings. Over the years, the site has gained more recognition and in 2011 and 2012 more research was undertaken by excavation leader, William Saturno. The full excavation of the site in Xultun took place in 2011. A detailed orange painting of a man holding a scribe was found. The scribe was seen pointing at a lunar table and traces of calendical cycles. The main discovery that disproved the end of the world were stacked bars and dots all representing different chunks of time, going over 7,000 years into the future. The most interesting part of the Xultun site was the fact that it represented a workspace, that was probably the gathering place for calculations to be made about astronomy and time. Unfortunately the area was heavily looted in the 70s so they are not many artefacts remaining. It is believed that these paintings were made when Xultun was facing an intense drought. In a time of depression, the people turned to the Kings and authorities, who would the turn to the scribes, who were seen to predict the future with their astronomical calculations.

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Saturno at the excavation

Understanding the Mayan Calendar

There is no easy way to explain the Mayan calendars or the way in which their numerical system worked. So instead of going into the confusing details, here's the most simplified version I could possibly find;

The Calendar consists of 3 separate corresponding calendars; the Long Count, the Tzolkin (divine calendar) and the Haab (Civil calendar). Time is cyclical in the calendars and a set number of days must occur before a new cycle can begin
The Long Count comes first, then the Tzolkin date and then the Haab date. A typical Mayan date would read: 13.0.0.0.0.4 Ahau 8 Kumku. 13.0.0.0.0 is the Long Count, 4 Ahau is the Tzolkin and 8 Kumku is the Haab.
The creation date for the current cycle we are in today is 4 Ahaw, 8 Kumku. This is equivalent to August, 11th, 3114 BC (Gregorian calendar) or September, 6th, 3114 BC (Julian calendar)
The date is identified by counting the number of days since the creation date. A typical Long Count date has the following format: Baktun, Katun, Tun, Uinal, Kin

Kin = 1 day
Uinal = 20 kin = 20 days
Tun = 18 uinal = 360 days
Katun = 20 tun = 260 uinal = 7,200 days
Baktun = 20 Katun = 400 tun = 7,200 uinal = 144,000 days

Kin, Tun and Katun are numbered from 0-19
Uinal are numbered from 0-17
Baktun are numbered from 1-13
The Long Count has a cycle of 13 baktuns = 1,872,000 days = 5,125.36 years and is referred to as the Great Cycle of the Long Count
This Great Cycle corresponds to 11:11 Universal Time, December 21st, 2012 - hence the doomsday date

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The Mayan Calendar

Chichén Itzá essentially represents a year. The four sides have 91 steps each, totalling to 364. The final step at the top makes it to 365, and is witness to the Mayan sacrifices to the Sun. Everything revolved around the Sun, quite literally.

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Chichen Itza

Doomsday Preppers

Firstly, the Mayans believed that time gets renewed, a similar understanding can be seen with New Years Day and Monday Mornings, it is just a renewed cycle. At no point, did they predict the end of the world .They merely predicted the end of one era in time. So seeing as we are very much still alive, what of the Doomsday preppers?

In Moscow, residents paid nearly $1000 to attend a 2-day 'doomsday party' in an underground bunker from the Cold War
A company in London offered a 3-course meal served in an ark
People all over the world held parties, crossed things off their bucket lists
Some took preparation very seriously; they spent months and even years constructing shelters, bunkers and stockpiling food and ammunition
A man in Phoenix kept 1,000 fish in his swimming pool
A California company sold over 50 survivor bunkers in just 3 months leading up to the day
3 million Americans actively prepared for the end of the world
Some people even killed their pets so that they wouldn't have to go through the apocalypse

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There is even a TV programme about the Doomsday Preppers

The preparation was varied and far-fetched in places, but it was a truly stressful time for many of the doomsday believers. Many people saw this period of time the perfect way for the companies to exploit peoples fear and sell them items that would be useless after the 21st December. It was seen as an excuse to make money.

Social Media Comments

Every aspect of social media was trending the topic of the end of the world. Some tweets and statuses are absurd, insulting and just downright funny. Here's some examples;

"If Mayans have taught us anything, it is if you don't finish something, it's not the end of the world."
"The first status on the 22nd December will be - Is anyone alive?"
"I wonder if there was just a day they were sick of making calendars"
"Snooki is expecting her baby on December 21st, 2012. I guess the Mayans knew what they were talking about."
The day after: "Well that was fun! What should we do next - Zombies?"
@Mayansofficial minutes after the supposed time: "Well...this is awkward."

I could go on and on and on....