“Take a seat.” Lisa pointed at a rickety, dining-room-style chair near the head of the table. She pulled back a chair, sat, and set her laptop on the table. A few moments later, the laptop was humming. “Okay, I’m going to do a brain dump, so listen fast.”
“I’m all ears.”
Lisa resisted the urge to make a joke. “Talk of end times is not new. It’s part of the Christian doctrine. There is an entire branch of theology devoted to eschatology—the study of Christ’s return and end times. As you probably know, there’s a fair amount to debate about the details, but most Bible-based churches agree that Jesus will bodily return.”
“I’m familiar with the concept.” Garrett leaned back.
“I assumed you were. Christians are not the only ones to believe the world will someday end. People share a collective sense that the world is getting near closing time. Apocalyptic thinking is everywhere. Especially now. According to the Pew Research Foundation, about one in five Americans believe that Christ will return in the current generation. A US News & World Report poll revealed sixty percent of all Americans—from all faith backgrounds—believe the world will end eventually.”
“Sixty percent?”
“Yup. About twenty percent say Earth’s life expectancy is just a couple of decades, and people are getting pretty nervous about it. December 21, 2012 is less than a year and a half away.”
“And the closer we get to that date—”
“The flakier things are going to get. Already we’ve seen the rise of cult groups and crazies. More and more people are predicting that December 21, 2012, is the apocalypse deadline—history’s final day. The stroke of midnight. The galactic tipping point. The astronomical grand finale.”
“Okay, okay, I got it.” Garrett leaned forward and tried to peer at Lisa’s computer screen. “What makes that date so special? I know that December 21, 2012, can be written 12-21-12. Is it some kinda code?”
“Several people have made a big deal of that, but it’s silly. We work on the Gregorian calendar, a system developed by Pope Gregory XIII. That’s a long time after the ancient Mayans.”
“So that part is just an interesting coincidence?”
Lisa nodded. “December 21, 2012, marks the end of the five-thousand-year cycle by the Mayan Long Count calendar. According to meticulous Mayan calculations, the world as we know it will reach its expiration date. They’re not the only ones to say this. The ancient Aztec calendar corroborates the Mayan date.” She paused. “Shouldn’t you be taking notes?”
Garrett grinned and tapped his forehead. “Eidetic memory.”
“You have a photographic memory?”
His grin spread. “That I do. Want me to prove it?”
“No.”
He seemed disappointed. “Okay.”
“Let’s get through this first.” Lisa took a breath. “The origins of the Mayans is a mystery. Some believe the Mayan lineage stretches back two thousand years. No one can be sure about much of anything, but there are some things we do know. The Mayans were not alone in ancient Mesoamerica. The Toltecs, who lived about five hundred miles to the west of central Mexico, spoke a different language but shared many of the Mayan beliefs about time, nature, and cosmology. The Toltecs arrived late on the scene, emerging to power in about A.D. 900. There were also the Olmecs, who were the first in the region to establish a major civilization. Their cultural influences peaked between 1500 and 600 B.C. Other Mayan neighbors were the Zapotecs and Aztecs.
“Mayan civilization grew until the population numbered five to fourteen million. That was around A.D. 800, but then the real mystery begins. One hundred years later, the population had diminished by eighty to ninety percent. No one knows why, but there is no shortage of theories: social or political upheaval, environmental breakdown leading to famine, or even sudden climate change. Others suggest a deadly plague.”
“Sounds logical. The plague, I mean.”
Lisa nodded slowly. “It seems so, but no vast gravesites indicating the sudden death of large numbers of people have been found. Perhaps several catastrophes took them out.” Lisa let her mind drift for a moment as she thought of the strange disappearance of millions of people.
“You okay?” Garrett looked puzzled.
“Sorry. Just thinking. Are you sure you shouldn’t be taking notes?”
Garrett straightened and closed his eyes. “Mayan civilization grew until the population numbered five to fourteen million. That was around A.D. 800, but then the real mystery begins—”
“Okay, okay, you win. No need to repeat everything I said.”
“Sorry. I like to show off.”
Lisa pursed her lips. “I see that.” She cleared her throat and glanced at the notes she had been accumulating over the last few weeks. “We may never know why they disappeared so quickly, but here’s one thing we do know: They left behind a remarkable legacy— and a bloody one.”
“I think I know the bloody part: They performed human sacrifice and would cut the hearts out of their victims.”
“Correct. There’s evidence that they would drop the bodies in a reservoir they used for their drinking water, thereby contaminating it. It’s been suggested that macabre indiscretion may have been the cause of the Mayan demise.”
Garrett squirmed. “Sick.”
“Human sacrifice, an annual ballgame in which the losing team was killed, and other practices can make a person think the Mayans were crude and barbaric. But they weren’t. Well, not completely. They proved themselves to be master builders and keen observers of the sky and time. They were sky-watching timekeepers.”
Lisa tapped a key on her computer and read her notes. “The Mayans weren’t just interested in time, they were obsessed with it. The Mayan calendar keepers charted the cycle of the moon with painstaking accuracy. They did the same for the sun and Venus. Their uncanny accuracy could not be duplicated until modern times.”
“How accurate is accurate?” Garrett was showing real interest.
“Without using telescopes, Mayan astronomers determined the length of a lunar month to be 29.53020 days, within thirty-four seconds of the current value. That was two thousand years ago.”
Garrett looked stunned. “They got it down to within thirty-four seconds? That seems impossible.”
“You’re right. It does seem impossible, but it is still true. They did the same with the solar year. By their calculation, a year was 365.2450 days. Modern science sets the length of a year at 365.2425. And the Mayan astronomers did all of this without the help of telescopes, computers, or calculators. And if you think that’s impressive, listen to this: They didn’t just keep track of time for a few years, or even a few decades. They kept track of time for millennia.”
“How many millennia?”
“Just twenty-six thousand years.”
“Oh, is that all?”
“Here’s the key: for the Mayans, time was holy. Time was reflected in events. To them, time formed history; not the other way around. We think of time as a string of hours or days. The Mayans saw it as part of a cosmic plan. A calendar was not something to jot down a business meeting on; it was the schematic of the past and the future. That’s why they spent so much time and precision in making their calendars. The Mayan time codes are very elaborate and precise.”
Garrett rose and paced the room for a few moments. “So where we see time as a series of events on a time line, they saw it as something bigger. Is that right?”
“Yes. They saw time, not as a line, but as series of repeating cycles. We measure the passing of days; they measured cycles.”
“And they did this on one calendar?” He returned to his seat, his brow knitted in thought.
“No, newbie, the Mayans had more than one calendar. They had about twenty different calendars, but they relied upon three main time-tracking calendars. These three calendars are most relevant to the 2012 date. The solar calendar, known as the Haab’—sometimes called the ‘Vague Year’—was based on the celestial cycle. I
t contains 365 days split into eighteen months of twenty days, each with a five-day period or ‘month’ left over. They considered that time as very unlucky.”
Garrett asked, “Why a twenty-day month? That seems odd.”
“To the Mayans, the number twenty was sacred because humans have twenty digits.”
“Oh. I guess that makes sense.”
“They’ll be happy that you approve.” Lisa softened the words with a slight smile. “The second calendar is called the Tzolk’in.” She spelled it aloud. “It was a ceremonial and sacred calendar related to Venus. It contained 260 days known as the ‘sacred cycle.’ It’s believed to be based on the nine-month period of human gestation. It was the oldest and most widely used calendar in Mesoamerica.”
Lisa didn’t wait for Garrett to comment. She plowed forward. “The third Mayan measure of time is known as the Long Count calendar. This is the biggie. It was used to document the ever-repeating age cycles of the world. They divided this calendar into five units that extended forward and backward from the mythical creation of the Mayans, which they believed was August 11, 3114 B.C. That day is represented on the Mayan Long Count calendar as 0.0.0.0.1—Day One. The fifth cycle is supposed to end on December 21, 2012, or 13.0.0.0.0—Day Last. The day after will be 0.0.0.0.1. It all starts over, but many believe that day will never come—at least not for humans. According to the Mayans, all five great cycles end in destruction. The year 2012 is the year the fifth great cycle is supposed to end.”
“And that’s where the end of the world comes in?” Garrett asked.
“That’s it. I hope you don’t have plans for that day.”
“Funny. How did they come up with their dates? It can’t be arbitrary.”
“It wasn’t arbitrary. The Long Count calendar is based on the procession of the equinox.”
“That sounds scientific. I avoided science classes.”
“I’m no scientist either,” Lisa said, “so I have to break it down into simple terms. A processional cycle is the amount of time it takes for the earth to complete one full ‘wobble.’ You know the earth turns on its axis, but what some don’t know is that as the earth rotates, it wobbles very slightly. If you imagine a pole extending through Earth’s axis, then the end of pole would inscribe a small circle in the sky called the ‘procession.’ Earth wobbles one degree every seventy-two years. It takes about 25,800 years to make a full circle. This is very close to the Mayan grand cycle.”
“So the 2012 date marks the end of the…”
“Fifth cycle. Five cycles of 5160 years. And to make matters even more interesting, the end of the fifth cycle coincides with the great ‘galactic alignment,’ in which the sun and the earth align with the galactic equator that bisects the black hole at the center of the Milky Way—something that occurs once every twenty-six thousand years. Around December 21, 2012, the earth will make this alignment just as it finishes one complete wobble.”
“And that’s supposed to bring about the end of the world? A wobble?” Garrett frowned. “What’s supposed to happen?”
Lisa shrugged. “Recorded history goes back only about six thousand years, so there are no records of what happened the last time the earth completed a wobble.”
“And you believe this, um, stuff?”
“Did I say that, newbie? Since you’ve been assigned to me, you need this info. Since I have to work with someone, then I might as well work with someone who is up to speed.”
“I’m always up to speed.”
“Sure you are. Let’s just test that, shall we? What is the significant fault in the wobble argument?”
“That it’s untrue?”
“No sir, not even close. The fact that the earth wobbles and the length of time it takes to do so are both scientifically established.”
“Okay, I give up.”
“It’s arbitrary. True, the length of time to complete a wobble matches the Mayan long cycle, but that doesn’t mean the two are related.”
“So that could be a coincidence.”
Lisa nodded. “Yes.”
“Unless the Mayans knew things we don’t.” He sat back in his chair.
“Do you think they did?”
He shrugged. “What do I know? I’m just trying to drink all this in.”
“Okay, drink this in: At the winter solstice for the Northern Hemisphere, the sun and the earth will line up with the galactic center of the Milky Way. We will cross the threshold of the Milky Way’s equator in 2012. When that happens, we will begin a new 5125-year world age and also a new 26,000-year processional cycle.” She tapped a few more keys. “Mayan cosmology predicts five cycles, each lasting 5125 years. According to the contemporary mythology, each previous cycle allegedly ended in destruction. Of course—”
“We have only six thousand years of history, so we don’t know if that’s true.”
Lisa grinned. “You have been listening. The fifth cycle is set to end on December 21, 2012—and not just the end of the one cycle but two. Two interlinked cycles of time: the 5125-year great world cycle ends, as does the greater 26,000-year processional cycle.”
“A double whammy.”
Lisa paused. “Um, sure, a double whammy. An alignment like this won’t occur again for another 26,000 years. The big question is this: What does it mean?”
“If the Mayans were so advanced, then why didn’t they just write all this down instead of leaving future generations to guess about their calendars?”
“They did have a highly developed writing system and kept detailed records of religious and historical events, but very little of it remains. Almost all of their writing is lost to history. Spanish conquistadors invaded Mesoamerica in the 1500s. Their—behavior—led to documents being lost or destroyed. Only three books and a fragment of a fourth remain. They are known as the Dresden, Madrid, Paris, and Grolier Codices. The best of these is the Dresden Codex. It’s an eleventh-century mind picture book, seventy-four pages long, and was made of a material from fig tree bark. It is nearly twenty feet long, covered with paintings of the Mayan gods. The book was written in Mayan hieroglyphics. It provides invaluable information about Mayan culture. The book is shrouded in mystery.”
“I like mystery.”
“Then you’ll like this. A common theory about the Dresden Codex is that it was taken from the Mayan temple and observatory at Chichen Itza by the Spanish conqueror Hernando Cortes and delivered to Emperor Charles V sometime around 1520. It’s called the Dresden Codex—officially Codex Dresdensis—and it gets its name from the place where it resides today: the Royal Library in Dresden, Germany. The director of the Royal Library of Dresden purchased the codex in 1739 from a collection in Vienna and donated it to the library in 1744. How the codex made its way to Austria is anyone’s guess. Most likely the King of Spain sent it there. At that time, he was also the king of Austria.”
“So what is the book about? I’m assuming it’s something more than a cookbook.”
Lisa sighed and closed her eyes. She opened them again, choosing to ignore Garrett’s flippant remark. “The Dresden Codex is an astronomy book. It contains numerous astronomical calculations and eclipse-prediction tables. It focuses specifically on Venus.”
“Venus?”
“Venus represented their god of war, and they believed its cycles could be used to predict the outcome of war. Due to its predictive nature, some consult the codex to discover important clues about the end of the world and any relation it has to the 2012 end date.
“The last page of the codex shows a great flood. Some assume it predicts a worldwide flood, but that’s far from certain.”
“A flood like Noah’s?”
“Perhaps. Others believe the Mayans taught the world will be destroyed by fire.”
“Fire? Flood? Which is it?”
“I don’t think it’s any of those things. I just want you to see that there is a lot of disagreement among the doomsayers.”
“Go back to the Milky Way thing again. Why is that so im
portant to the Mayans?”
“They believed the center of the galaxy was the womb of the world—the place where stars are born. What’s amazing is that modern science has discovered that there is a black hole at the center of the galaxy where all the stars in the Milky Way were born. An ancient Mayan symbol portrays the center of the Milky Way as a turning disc. It’s eerily accurate. They came to these astronomical conclusions without the help of high-speed computers and complex software.
“On December 21, 2012, according to disaster theorists, the sun will eclipse the center of the galaxy, interrupting energy flow from the galactic center to our planet. Many think that will hasten the end of the world.”
“And I just thought these guys built some interesting buildings and performed human sacrifices.”
Lisa agreed. “I’m still stunned by their astronomical sophistication and their obsession with time. The buildings you admire were positioned to align with the heavens. That includes all major buildings and even their houses, which they carefully positioned so the corners of the structure aligned with cardinal compass directions. Windows were situated to allow the sun to shine on specific objects at certain times.”
Lisa brought up a photo on her laptop. “Did you know the Mayan pyramids are older than those in Egypt?”
“No way.”
“Yes way. To put it in historical perspective, the Mayans constructed the pyramid at Cuicuilco, Mexico, in 2750 B.C. That’s about the same time as the building of Stonehenge in England. Egyptians erected the Great Pyramid about two hundred years later—in 2560 B.C. It’s fascinating that all these mysterious stone structures came to be around the same time and in such diverse places.”
“And all this has led to the doom boom.” Garrett smiled.
“Doom boom?”
“Yeah. Movies, books, articles, conferences, everyone is talking about this. It seems like the world loves the idea of its own demise.”
“Doom boom.” Lisa chuckled. “I like that. You’re right. People can’t seem to get enough of this. I can understand why Christians look forward to the return of Christ. That makes sense. Who wouldn’t want that to happen soon, but the end of life on the planet?”
The Mayan Apocalypse Page 7
