A New Year’s Mayan Calendar: Background & Prophetic Elements

Kelly OConnell

Given 2011 has officially ended, and we’ve entered into 2012 of the Gregorian calendar, many folks are hand-wringing over this as the end of the age, or that the Apocalypse is finally at hand. This is because the Mayan Calendar says so! Or does it?

This article examines the theory that the Mayans foresaw the end of the world, as currently described by hundreds of new books, many of them available on Amazon.com. Yet, before anyone goes out and gives away all their belongings, and locks themselves in a reinforced root cellar—don’t forget we just experienced another “end of the world” hoax. Self-educated “pastor” and mortician-like heretic Harold Camping’s cult declared the world over twice in the last 12 months!

More pointedly, one of the world’s great experts on the ancient Maya and their calendar, David Stuart, claims modern descriptions of the “Mayan Apocalypse” is just another load of prophetic rubbish. This is the topic of the present essay, which will hopefully help the sophisticated reader to decide the issue themselves (in between ringing in the New Year!).

I. History of the Mayans

The Mesoamerican Mayans (approx 1,800 B.C.—1,000 A.D.), created an incredible culture located in present-day southern Mexico, Guatemala, northern Belize and western Honduras. Using borrowed inventions, Mayans were builders and stargazers, as well as superb farmers. They cleared large tracts of forests and made underground tanks to store rainwater for cultivation, and all without metal implements. The Maya constructed elaborate and picturesque ceremonial architecture, such as temple-pyramids, palaces and observatories. They also constructed extensive trails throughout their kingdom, helping encourage trade. One website describes their history:

Around 300 B.C., the Maya adopted a hierarchical system of government with rule by nobles and kings. This civilization developed into highly structured kingdoms during the Classic period, A.D. 200-900. Their society consisted of many independent states, each with a rural farming community and large urban sites built around ceremonial centres. It started to decline around A.D. 900 when - for reasons which are still largely a mystery - the southern Maya abandoned their cities. When the northern Maya were integrated into the Toltec society by A.D. 1200, the Maya dynasty finally came to a close, although some peripheral centres continued to thrive until the Spanish Conquest in the early 16^th century.

Maya history can be characterized as cycles of rise and fall: city-states rose in prominence and fell into decline, only to be replaced by others. It could also be described as one of continuity and change, guided by a religion that remains the foundation of their culture. For those who follow the ancient Maya traditions, the belief in the influence of the cosmos on human lives and the necessity of paying homage to the gods through rituals continues to find expression in a modern hybrid Christian-Maya faith.

II. Mayan Religion

The Mayan religious worldview was typically pagan, featuring a pantheon of many gods and goddesses. Much still remains mysterious of Maya religious traditions, but they conceived the cosmos composed of three major planes—an underworld, the sky, and the earth. One of the most dramatic aspects of Mayan rites was the practice of human sacrifice, incorporating both adult and child victims, the latter in view of their purity.

An overview of Mayan religion is described here:

The Maya underworld is reached through caves and ball courts. It was thought to be dominated by the aged Maya gods of death and putrefaction. The Sun and Itzamna, both aged gods, dominated the Maya idea of the sky. The night sky was considered a window showing all supernatural doings. The Maya configured constellations of gods and places, saw the unfolding of narratives in their seasonal movements, and believed that the intersection of all possible worlds was in the night sky.

There is a massive array of supernatural characters in the Maya religious tradition. Good and evil traits are not permanent characteristics of Maya gods, nor is only “good” admirable. What is inappropriate during one season might come to pass in another since much of the Maya religious tradition is based on cycles, not permanence.

The life-cycle of maize lies at the heart of Maya belief. This philosophy is demonstrated on the Maya belief in the Maize God as a central religious figure. The Maya bodily ideal is also based on the form of the young Maize God, which is demonstrated in their artwork. The Maize God was also a model of courtly life for the Classical Maya.

Regarding human sacrifices (which the related culture Aztecs also practiced), the bookGods and Goddesses: A Treasury of Deities and Tales From World Mythology (Edit by Dr Miriam Hallam) describes this:

Tlaloc, a pre-Aztec rain god with a close affinity to the Mayan god Chac, was one of the most powerful gods in the Aztec pantheon. He could bring water to make the corn grow. His benevolence was of utmost importance, and at the end of the dry season many small children were ritually sacrificed on mountain top altars to ensure that a season of plenty would follow.

Itzamna was a sun god, and lord of the east and west, and of day and night. He was founder of the Mayan capital and brought maize and cocoa to mankind, established religious ceremonies and rituals, and divided out the land. He was the most revered and benevolent, god of the Maya pantheon. Although Itzamna was benevolent, at Chichen Itza, in the Yucatan peninsula, human sacrifices were regularly made to the gigantic statue of a crocodile, thought to represent him. This was done to ensure that he did not turn against the people he had greatly benefited.

III. Mayan Calendar

Pictures of the unique and unforgettable Mayan Calendar—designed round with the central motif of a man’s head, mouth open, inside a wheel of separate figures—have made it famous (depicted here). According to researchers at the U of Delaware, the Mayan Calendar is based upon two main elements—a 365-day year intersected by an independent 260-day ritual-cycle based itself upon thirteen 20-day mini-cycles. The purpose of the 260-day cycle was to keep track of specific religious days. Whereas, the 365 day “vague year” plotted the solar year, as does the modern use of the Gregorian Calendar.

The two separate measurements of time were then set up as wheels and run as cogs against one another like clockwork pieces (pictured here). When these two wheels run continuously against one another, it takes 52 years for them to come back exactly to the starting position. This so-called short cycle is known as the Calendar Round. Here, a combination of a day and month position will repeat every 52 years. Also, a longer cycle was their 73-year sacred year cycle.

A. Predictions of the Calendar

Many persons writing modern books upon the Mayan Prophecies have come to the conclusion they augur the end of the world. One such specific prophecy being relayed is that 2012 is zero hour and that the Mayan Calendar predicts that a year after December 21, 2011 the world will suffer an apocalypse. In fact, most books on the Mayan Calendar claim it predicts apocalyptic events—because, of course, predictions of disaster sell books.

B. Itzá Prophecy

The “Itza Prophecy” is a notable precursor to the hopes or fears of a modern belief in Mayan fortune-telling. David Stuart—one of the world’s greatest authorities on the ancient Mayans—in The Order of Days: The Maya World and the Truth About 2012, describes the so-called Itzá Prophecy:

Itzá were a Mayan-speaking people who occupied a large, remote region in what is now northern Guatemala. The story of their eventual conquest in 1697 is a remarkable tale, a barely known episode of American history. What is most striking about it is that during the decades leading up to their fall, the Itzá Maya had prophesied their own end. Numerous written accounts tell us how King Kanek’ had a strong sense of his inevitable defeat, when, according to the sacred prophecies, a new era of the Maya calendar called a k’atun would begin. Yet, native prophecy played as much a role in the defeat of the Itzá as the political machinations of the time, or as did the superior weaponry and numbers of the Spanish soldiers. For the Itzá, the year 1679 was the inevitable “end of an era,” a foretold turning point when time would fold and repeat itself, and political change and transformation were utterly unavoidable. In a fascinating twist on how we usually look on the course of history, native prophecy made the Itzá look upon their conquest and conversion to Christianity as a foregone conclusion.

C. Mayan End of Ages

Many authors have predicted not just a new age, but even total destruction for the earth in 2012. Here is a typical statement, from John Major Jenkin’s book Maya Cosmogenesis 2012: The True Meaning of the Maya Calendar End-Date:

While researching the 2012 end-date of the Maya Calendar, John Major Jenkins decoded Mayan galactic cosmology. Mayans discovered the periodic alignment of the Sun with the center of the Milky Way galaxy is the formative influence on human evolution. These alignments also define a series of World Ages. The fourth age ends on Dec. 21, 2012, when an epoch chapter in human history will come to an end. Maya Cosmogenisis 2012 reveals Mayan insight into the cyclic nature of time, and prepares us for our own cosmogenesis—the birth of a new world.

The problem with using the Mayan dates for the “end of the world” is that these people did not see their universe in a similar manner as modern folks do, according to Stuart. This is especially true regarding Mayan creation and destruction cycles. Writes Stuart,

The Mayan worldview saw the universe as an evolving and developing system, punctuated by episodes of destruction and reformulation as it lurched toward the historical present. Over vast time periods, the gods performed multiple experiments with the creation of people until they got it right. I find it interesting that in very general terms, Mesoamerican myths describe the process of “Creation” as a series of starts, destructions, and restart. This recurrence of creation & destruction fits well with the idea that the present world may not have a well-defined ending.

But Stuart insists the entire idea that the Mayans in their calendar prophesied a 2011-12 end of the world is superstitious drivel:

Many of the books on 2012 have evocative, even alarming titles. According to these strange-sounding books and TV shows—and none of them is ever consistent in its message—the ancient Maya, having some keen insight into the mystical workings of our planet and the cosmos, were able to predict that the world would end or in some way be radically transformed in the year 2012—on the winter solstice December 21, to be exact (although, again, some sources differ on the precise day).

This is all complete nonsense. As someone who has studied the Maya for nearly all of his life, and who specializes in reading their ancient texts in order to understand their history, religion, and culture, I have to lay down the line and assert that any such statements about the Maya predicting the world’s demise or, alternatively, some “transformation of consciousness” in 2012 is, to put it as simply and directly as possible, wrong. Not only wrong, but misleading.

IV. Pagan Calendar Chaos—Apocalypse Now?

Is it possible we are at the end of the age, whether pagan or Christian—such as foretold as the biblical Apocalypse? If so, then how would ancient pagans be able to foretell this better than biblical prophets? Further, why would Christ say “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.” (Matt 24:35-36) Yet many remain convinced that, in a general pagan revelation, all religions and prophecies are now leading to the end of the age on December 21st, 2012.

But only time will tell. In the meanwhile—Have a Happy New Year!