ROOTS OF THE MAYA CALENDAR HYSTERIA

The roots of the hysteria regarding the Maya calendar, December 21, 2012 and the end of the world go way back to those long-ago days of yore in the 70s. No, not the 1570s, or 1670s or 1770s, but the 1970s. That was when one Frank Waters published a book that Mexican historian Erik Velasquez, National Autonomous University of Mexico, terms a “mishmash of beliefs.”

According to Velasquez, cited in the Latin American Herald Tribune, Waters proclaimed that “Monument 6 in Tortuguero, in Tabasco, marked the supposed end of the Fifth Sun (which is a Mexican concept, not Maya) and the arrival of a new humanity, or Sixth Sun.” He added that the Mayas of the period (250-999 A.D.) “in no way ever thought that time was going to end in 2012.”

Sven Gronemeyer, an inscriptions expert from Australia’s La Trobe University, explained that Monument 6 in Tortuguero is no more than a reference to the end of a time cycle and the beginning of another. Similarly, I suppose, to when December 31 rolls around and we all ditch the old calendar for a new one and begin a new time cycle.

The actual Maya prophecies revolving around this coming December are of the return of a Maya god named Bolon Yokte, which actually sounds like a James Bond villain. His return, according to Gronemeyer, would simply mark the end of one time cycle and the beginning of another. Sort of Happy New Cycle!

And, just to be clear, Jesus Galindo, an astrophysicist at UNAM, pointed out that while the Maya were conscientious astronomers, they did not nor does contemporary science have “the ability to look at an ‘end of the world.”

All of this was discussed by Mexican scientists and their colleagues from around the world at the 7th Palenque Roundtable in the southern state of Chiapas sponsored by the Mexican National Anthropology and History Institute (INAH) in early December.

A report was issued by INAH that said, in part, that “an astrophysicist, a historian and two epigraphists shot down the myths about a supposed cataclysm or a ‘change of consciousness’ of humanity, which will presumably occur on Dec. 21 of the coming year.”

It’s always good to hear from the scientists. Of course the true believers won’t believe a word of it. “Phooey! What do they know?”