h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Noticed there was no mention that the Mayan calendar states this epoch will end on 23rd December 2012 and all humanity could be wiped out forever...

Are you sure that has been calculated right given the number of shifts in the western claender that have happened?

I thought it was the 22nd

I reckon now would be a good time to take out one of them 30 year mortages on your house and spend money like a wild cat.

Anyway, according to others the world will have major problems in 2003 when the 12th planet comes around.

The 12th?

Are there two others I don't know about??

We're all going to die.

Isn't that what they said about 9/9/99, Y2K, and May 15th 2000.

And isn't the 23ed of Dec. 2012 just the day that they stopped counting on the calander? maybe someone just got tired of counting all the days for 2000+ years. I could be wrong.

At least the Mayans would have got this y2k thing right - and would all agree when the new millenium starts.

I think I'll buy up a bunch of 1999 crystal flute glasses at $2 each, and buy Champagne at it's regular market price this December to celebrate the start of the millenium.

9/9/99 and Y2K were both a load of rubbish put about by computer people trying to make a quick buck by persuading people to buy 'Y2K Compliant Programs' and all that other stuff.

2012 was a date calculated by the Maya very specificaly. I don't know about the date being inaccurate due to changes in *our* calendar but as I understand it the Mayan Calendar was pretty infalible. Many times more precise than our calendrical system.

Plus they worked out the dates of the beginning/end of the last couple of epochs and how they occured - each of which is slowly but surely being proved right by modern science.

Makes you think...

How does the calender predict the end of the world? Is there something written on it,
5/9/2011 - Bill's Birthday
8/22/2011 - Dinner at Moms
12/31/2011 - end of world party
1/1/2012 - end of world!

or does it just end with no explanation?

I'm no expert but it's my understanding that the Maya had texts of some kind which refered to the calendar and dates on it. I'm not sure that there was anything written on the calendar itself.

There was an actual calander that went all the way from the beging of earth to the year 2012? (theres got to be one big wall to tack that sucker up on)
Was it in a book or something?
I am just not really understanding how their calander ends and why everyone is saying that that signifies the end of the world.

The Mayan at the peak of their computer revolution often were as confused as you. This is why many Mayan computer consultants were able to make a fast peso selling y2012 compliant software and fixes.

I don't know where it starts and I'm not 100% sure that it ends at 2012. The calendar itself is circular. They didn't have books, it was made of stone.

I think that there are lots of concentric circles inside the main one and each of these is divided up into segments which each represent a particular unit of time.

Our calendar, on the other hand, is divided up into lots of little squares, one page per month and we get a new one every year. That's just cultural differences.

An alien culture on another planet might have a different calendar for every solar-month, made up of lots of little triangles and scratched on a dry-poop-patty. Every culture does things differently...

"Are there two others I don't know about??"

Concerning the 12th planet: It's a Zecharia Sitchin thing where, apprantly, the ancient Sumerians (as opposed to the modern ones) counted all the planetary bodies and the sun as planets from the outside inwards. The 12th is a supposed large planet that has an extremely large and highly elliptical orbit so it only comes around every few thousand years. According to www.zetatalk.com it's due in 2003. I'm not sure how they arrived at that, but there you go.

As far as the Mayans are concerned, I think it was mentioned in the article that the current "age" ends in 2012 which will bring about a re-birth of everything. A circular period about to begin anew. I could be wrong; it's been a long time since I read up on the Mayans but that bit sort of sticks out in my mind.

If I recall, the Mayan calendar is indeed circular; the date 12.19.19.17.19 is followed by 13.0.0.0.0 (the aforementioned 22-Dec-2012) and then it starts over with 0.0.0.0.1 (the next day). The Mayans didn't necessarily believe that the world started in 3114 BC, just that the current Big Epoch started then, and that another one will begin near the end of 2012. It may have been a recognition that, in their heyday, what came before 3114 BC was unknowable.

-- Charlie

Or that there was a cataclysmic flood which brought about the end of the last epoch. There's quite a lot of evidence for that...

I reckon you're giving the Mayans too much credit.
Their calendar said their world started in 3114 BC and ends in 2012 - but their world ended WAY before then. They were WAY off.

I think you'll find they were talking about humanity in general, rather than just themselves.

The Mayan world never ended. There are plenty of them living in Southern Mexico and Guatemala. They don't erect great stone Pyramids in the jungle, etc., but they live in modern communities like everyone else. The ancient prehispanic Mayan organisation that built all these ancients sites went through a mysterious decline that left the ancient cities abandoned. That is a mystery or a "challenge" for archaeologists. However the people are still there after whatever hardship they did suffer then, and following the Spanish conquest. They speak their own language and have their own traditional dress, etc.. They live in Mexico just as do the Huichol, Tarahumara and other cultures that have been around for thousands of years and haven't gone - who also have their own languages, beliefs, dress and social code, etc..

Most of the written history and oral history of the ancient Mexicans (like the codices) was simply destroyed in the Spanish conquest, as it did not fit into the theology of the folks who ran the whole thing, and is lost forever. Maybe a lot of this would explain the Mayans' early history. However, it is likely gone, and the knowledge lost. The modern Mayan world incorporates much of the Spanish culture, of course, but this is mixed with the old.

The world is always changing - people don't usually just vanish - they usually adapt. The Romans invaded Britain and beat up the locals until they behaved, and got along happily for hundreds of years - they are all still there, just as the Saxons, Vikings and Normans who followed - Granted they all mixed up a bit and had a bit of a rumble from time to time - But they were not exterminated, or made extinct.