World HOt toPPIX

Note: This post was written by Karah Finan, PACE student employee at Alden Library By now I'm sure you've heard the rumors that the Mayans predicted the end of the ...

By now I?m sure you?ve heard the rumors that the Mayans predicted the end of the world on December 21, 2012. Now that the date draws nearer it begs the question, how much merit do these claims really have?

December 21, 2012 is the day that the Mayan calendar, which has run for almost 5,000 years, comes to an end, according to Ryan Rivet of Tulane University. December 21, 2012 date is the final day of the current pik cycle, a period of 144,000 days (approximately 394 years), it is also the close of a cycle of 13 piks (1,872,000 days or approximately 5,125 years) that began on August 11, 3114 BCE, according to Robert Sitler, professor of Modern Languages & Literature at Stetson University.

Professors and researchers at the Middle America Research Institute at Tulane University have been studying the Mayan calendar, and have found the apocalyptic claims have little merit.

?It?s a crock,? says Harvey Bricker, who is an emeritus professor and a fellow researcher at the institute. ?It?s based on ignorance and misinformation. One starts with the clear statement that the Maya calendar will not end in 2012. It is the end of one calendrical unit. It?s not the end of the calendar or the end of the world.?

Carl Johan Calleman, who has a PhD in Toxicology but no formal training on the ancient Maya culture, differs from the Tulane researchers in his interpretation of the Mayan calendar. According to Calleman, ?The Mayan Calendar provides an exact schedule for the Cosmic Plan and the unfolding of all things that come into existence.?

Calleman does not believe that the world will end in an apocalypse on this date, but that the world will have to come together in a ?Conscious Convergence.? Calleman describes this Conscious Convergence as, ?Not just any consciousness, but one that transcends the dualities of the past and aids the human beings to see the unity of all things.? According to Calleman, if we do not align ourselves with the Maya calendar, then individual consequences will occur.

So, is December 21, 2012 just simply the end of a Mayan unit of time, or will it have philosophical, perhaps devastating, impact? Though the answer is unclear and both sides disputed, I am sure that ancient Mayans would be amused at how much attention the calendar they created is getting over 5,000 years later.