2012---the truth according to Maya scholars---you may relax! ( Archived) (178)

Recently, I've finally tackled this supposed 2012 Mayan doomsday or transformation prophecy---according to what has been projected by the media or what many of you label as "new agers". So I had to see what those who study the ancient and modern Maya — anthropologists, archaeologists, art historians, linguists, historians, amateurs, collectors had to say about this?

Here are some facts:

How rare is the 2012 Galactic Alignment?

"In fact, the sun as already crossed the Galactic Equator in 1999. The edge of the sun first touched the equator in the early 1980’s, and will be in contact with it each 21st of December until about 2019. Again, this “rare” alignment has already been happening for twenty-five years and will continue for a decade more." - Mark Van Stone

What did the Maya say about 2012?

"They actually said very little, if anything. Only one ancient inscription refers to the upcoming 13.0.0.0.0 date in 2012, from a now destroyed site named Tortuguero. The question we scholars have struggled with is whether the final few hieroglyphs of that text describe anything about what will happen. A few years ago I put forward a very tentative and incomplete reading of these damaged glyphs, including a possible use of a verb meaning “descend” and a name of a god, Bolon Yokte’. Much of it was iffy and remains so; I’m not sure I believe much of what I wrote back then. More recently my colleague Steve Houston has pointed out the glyphs may not even pertain to that date anyway. So there’s considerable ambiguity just in the reading of the glyphs and the rhetorical structure of the Tortuguero passage. What we can say with confidence is that the ancient Maya left no clear or definite record about 2012 and its significance. There is certainly no ancient claim that the world or any part of it will come to an end." - David Stuart

Does the Maya calendar end in 2012?

"No it doesn’t. What will happen is a recurrence, an anniversary of sorts, of a key mythological date in the distant past. The Maya wrote this as 13.0.0.0.0 in their “Long Count” calendar (an abbreviation of a much bigger number), which fell on August 11, 3114 B.C. (some correlations of the two calendars say August 13, but I don’t really care). This “creation date” was not the beginning of everything, however. Maya mythological texts tell us that plenty was happening long, long before this starting point of the current era. On December 21, 2012 (some say December 23) we come again to a numerological recurrence of 13.0.0.0.0. The Long Count calendar continues well beyond this date, too. In fact, the numerology of the calendar demands that there will be other similar recurrences of this same date in the far distant future, on a scale of octillions of years. The scale of Maya time reckoning dwarfs anything in our own cosmology by many orders of magnitude." - David Stuart


Sources; Mark Van Stone:





David Stuart:

More...

9 Reasons why the “Maya Prophecies” should
be read very critically:

1. Very fragmentary. What we have is only a handful of passages
from a lost, and much longer, story.

2. Contradictory. Though Aztec, Mixtec, and Maya sources provide us
a number of narratives, different versions disagree. The calendar
dates associated with Maya “end date,” Aztec “end date,” and
“return of Quetzalcoatl” all vary.
For example: the Aztec predict that this Creation will end on a
4-Movement day in a 2-Reed year, if it ends at all. The next
possible Aztec end-date will be in 2027. Maya literature does not
explicitly predict any end at all, and their so-called “end date” in
2012 is a 4-Ajaw [4-Flower in Aztec cycle], not 4-Movement.
Mixtec Creation stories mention 2-Deer in year 13-Rabbit, and
other dates.

3. Manipulated. Tlacaélel, Machiavellian minister to three
Aztec emperors, had no illusions about the propaganda
power of history, and saw to it that history was rewritten
completely to exalt the Mexica and denigrate rivals. He was
neither the first or the last to do this. At his behest, the
Aztecs burned their own libraries as well as their enemies’,
in order to start with a clean slate. They even changed
Quetzalcoatl’s birthday. Likewise, Maya dates and
intervals of time were manipulated for their numerological
and augural significance.

4. Misunderstood. 21st-century Western world-view is very
different from that of ancient Mesoamericans. We tend to
project our own ideas and beliefs on others.
• For example: their distinction between truth and myth,
and between various individual gods, were nowhere near
our categorical boundaries. Gods did not have distinct
personalities, they blended into each other, they split into
gangs of 4 or 5. The days, and even the numerals in their
calendars were living, powerful entities. Some Maya
texts (below) appear to have indicated “myth time” with
“unworkable” calendar days.

5. Errors. Maya monuments, particularly dates and distance
numbers contain errors, both of transcription and of
calculation. I count something over 50 numerical mistakes
carved in stone. Apparently the Maya, believed that “a card
laid is a card played” and never, ever, erased and fixed a
mistake.

6. No mention of destruction nor of renewal, nor
improvement, connected to the coming 13.0.0.0.0 Maya
“end date”.

7. Implication that Life and the calendar will continue
without interruption beyond 2012.

8. The Mesoamerican concept of “cyclic time” is not that
cyclic. To both the Maya and the Aztec each Creation was
an improvement on the previous era.

9. Solstices were of very minor importance. Though they record
hundreds of ceremonies, anniversaries, jubilees, dedications,
offerings, astronomical events, etc., inscriptions almost never
mention events on solstices or equinoxes. However, especially
very early, during the Middle Formative, the Maya built “EGroups,”
architectural alignments to the Solstices and Equinoxes.
(Archaeoastonomers have long been puzzled by the fact that most
E-Groups do not align to these risings. Recent investigation
suggests that E-Groups may have been aligned to the solar Zenith
Passages and Nadirs, events more highly esteemed than Solstices.
The First Zenith Passage coincides with the onset of the rainy
season in much of Mesoamerica.)" - Mark Van Stone

Can you source/link this please? Bear in mind that Mesoamerica at that time had greater linguistic diversity than Europe, and that much evidence suggests that May city-states had more differences between their mythologies and calendars than similarities.

Yeah man, I've heard so many theories about the sudden and drastic physical and spiritual shift on December 21, 2012. It's crazy about all the websites and books devoted to this doomsday or transformation prophecy that is supposedly to happen on a particular date. And a date that the Mayans themselves, made no significant mention of. Only those that are pushing the theory projected by the Western world.