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Glyphs from Temple of the Foliated Cross, reproduction at Museum of Mayan Culture, Chetumal, Quintana Roo, Mexico

A bookseller who read ‘The Joshua Files’ once confided in me that she was now ‘a bit worried about what was going to happen in 2012′.

I was pretty thrilled actually. Not to be causing her anxiety - I got the impression that the anxiety wasn’t real, but a frisson of fear, a sort of ‘what if’? And boy, do writers love to give readers the frisson and the ‘what if’.

It struck me though that some people may actually take the 2012 thing seriously. It’s not widely known about - yet. So in case you’re one of those who is wondering, here is the MG Harris take on 2012 and all that.

Detail of ‘2012 prophecy’ inscription from Monument 6, Tortuguera

Did the ancient Maya actually say the world would end in 2012?

(NB this is not the same as asking ‘will the world end’ - we’re just wondering if the Maya believed it…)

Strictly speaking, without the benefit of time-travel we can’t be sure. However, we can look at the writings that are left by the Maya, and by the oral history - stories that have been passed down by word of mouth. And it’s not clear from either the written documents that have survived, or the stories told, that the Maya think the world will end in 2012.

Evidence supporting a 2012 doomsday prophecy:

(NB when I say evidence I mean written historical documents)

1. The Long Count Calendar has a pretty specific end date - 21 Dec 2012. It must come from somewhere.
2. An inscription known as Tortuguera Monument 6 is the only known inscription to mention the Mayan Long Count date 13.0.0.0.0 - 21 Dec 2012. There’s a glyph which reads ‘uht-oom’ - (utom) it will happen. And then something about some Gods descending. Then the rest of the inscription is too worn away to be read. This doesn’t prove a doomsday prophecy exactly - but it suggests some kind of prophecy, at least.You can see the Tortuguera inscription and here’s a translation by epigrapher David Stuart:

Tzuhtz-(a)j-oom u(y)-uxlajuun pik
(ta) Chan Ajaw ux(-te’) Uniiw.
Uht-oom ?
Y-em(al)?? Bolon Yookte’ K’uh ta ?.

“The Thirteenth ‘Bak’tun” will be finished
(on) Four Ajaw, the Third of Uniiw (K’ank’in).
? will occur.
(It will be) the descent(??) of the Nine Support? God(s) to the ?.”

Evidence against a 2012 doomsday prophecy:

1. There are at least a few inscriptions which appear to make predictions for dates BEYOND 13.0.0.0.0 This suggests that at least some of the Maya believed that other important events would take place after 2012; i.e. the world would not end.
   From Wikipedia:
   Maya stela occasionally show dates beyond 2012. Most of these are in the form of “distance dates”, where a Long Count date is given with a distance date to be added. For example, on Tablet of Inscriptions from Palenque were found the following Long Count date: 9.8.9.13.0 8 Ahau 13 Pop (24 March 603 Gregorian) with a distance date of 10.11.10.5.8. The resulting date is given as 1.0.0.0.0.8 5 Lamat 1 Mol, or 21 October 4772 – almost 3,000 years into the future. The king Pacal of Palenque predicted that on this date the eightieth Calendar Round anniversary of his accession will be celebrated, suggesting he did not believe the world would end in 2012.
   
2. If the Maya DID believe in a 2012 doomsday - why is there so little reference to such an important event in their writings?
   (Of course you could argue that most of their writings were destroyed…or as in ‘The Joshua Files’ - that the 2012 theory was a secret guarded by very few…but that’s all speculation. Fun though, isn’t it?)

References: How do I know any of this?

I must admit that I shortcut the heavy research here and leapfrogged by plundering a debate on the subject amongst some of the world’s top Mayan scholars. I figured that they should know - and they only get work on the strength of their reputations for intellectual rigour.

You can read the 2012 debate here on the University of Texas MesoAmerica Center Discussion Board. The rest is from Wikipedia.

Representation of a deity of Xibalba, Museum of Mayan Culture, Chetumal, Mexico

But Is There Any Actual Evidence For A 2012 Doomsday/Cataclysm?

Well now you’re asking. A quick search on Google will show you how many sites there are devoted to the 2012 question. Another on Amazon will show you how many books have 2012 as their theme.

See how popular the 2012 question is becoming on Google…

The truth is that there are plenty of theories. But no hard evidence. I’m not going to refute each theory because I don’t have the necessary knowledge or expertise. Who knows what will happen? With so many different theories you’ve gotta ask - they can’t all be right. Can they?

Here are some of the theories, so you can read and decide for yourself. These are NOT scientific articles; they are not peer-reviewed - they have been put up by people who believe in these ideas. But your decision will just be an opinion. Because ultimately this is an experiment that will have to wait until 21 Dec 2012…

• The Galactic Superwave
• The Earth’s magnetic poles will shift
• The galactic alignment will cause human beings to experience a shift in consciousness
• A supervolcano will explode and begin a nuclear winter - catastrophic, sudden climate change.

Finally, here are a couple of articles about 2012 that you might find interesting.

• New York Times Magazine 2012 article
• Lawrence.com “Five Years: 2012 and the end of the world as we know it”

Nostrodamus

Why Do I Care?

From Nostrodamus to Asterix, from nuclear holocaust to global warming, I can’t remember a time in my life when the world wasn’t obsessed both in fiction and reality, with eschatology - the end of the world.

Well, me too. When I was young I had a bet with my pal Eoin that the world would end in 1981, just like Nostrodamus said. I guess I figured that if the world did end then winning that bet would be some small comfort. Eoin and I were always trying to prove points against each other.

The thing is…back then I really believed it might. When the world didn’t end in 1981 I started to get mighty sceptical. I noticed that all around were doom-mongers. But where was the doom?

My father was one - in a major way. He loved books like Alvin Toffler’s ‘Future Shock’, bestsellers in the emerging field of ‘futurology’, in which economics and science are used to try to predict the future. As opposed to ancient forms of divination like wooden sticks, the I Ching or cowry shells…

My father used to tell me for hours on end about how there was going to be a big war in the Middle East that would end the world’s oil supply, that we were all going to die from overpopulation, that Russia was going to launch nuclear weapons by mistake against the USA and trigger a nuclear war. You didn’t hear much about global warming back then but if you had I’m pretty sure that he’d have been painting gloomy scenarios for his morbidly fascinated daughter.

I was only a teenager and my father was a figure of massive intellectual authority; not just to me. I didn’t have the facts with which to argue, so I lapped it all up, wide-eyed.

When I was 20 he died of a heart attack aged 46, proving that whatever the dangers the world faced, for him the humble cigarette consumed at 40-a-day was more of a threat than any global doomsday scenario.

Meanwhile, human history took some interesting turns that were quite contrary to anything anyone had predicted. My father didn’t live to see that predicting the future wasn’t so simple after all. That often problems that you thought would come to a head simply disappeared. That things you hadn’t even thought to worry about suddenly became massive problems.

Things We Worried About When I Was A Kid

• Overpopulation - we were all going to be starving by the year 2000
• Nuclear war - the Soviet Empire was going to go to war with the NATO allied countries and annihalate the world
• Oil running out - countries in the Middle East was going to hold the entire world to ransom over the dwindling supplies of oil. We’d be out of oil within 20 years.
• You were never safe from being bombed by the IRA
• Unemployment

Things We Never Worried About When I Was A Kid

• Underpopulation - the population aging so much that there won’t be enough young people working to support the elderly
• Global warming
• Fundamentalist religious terrorists

We worried about a whole load of things that haven’t come to pass. We forgot to worry about a whole load of things that have.

One way or another, I was convinced as a teenager that come the year 2000 the world would have been transformed into some miserable post-apocalyptic scene like you see in movies such as ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ and ‘I Am Legend’.

I never expected the Internet, mobile phones, pocket video cameras, ubiquitous comfy coffee shops, EuroDisney, multichannel TV with personal video recording (TiVO or SkyPlus etc). Okay, not everyone in the world is lucky enough to have access to these comforts. But I expected to be scrabbling in the deserted streets of some rundown metropolitan centre, with my hair cut ragged and short so that I looked like a guy…what we have is a big improvement on what I feared would come to pass.

History isn’t a big sweeping force that can’t be altered. Key, unpredictable events - often started by one person or a small group of people - are what change human history. If you read Isaac Asimov’s classic sci-fi series, ‘Foundation’, you’ll see a terrific story around this premise.

But…it’s interesting, still. Where do these doomsday ideas come from? Why are we so fascinated by them? That’s why I chose this as a theme for Joshua Files. It obsessed me as a teenager.

When my father solemnly informed me that the ancient Maya had predicted our demise in 2012 I was gripped…a lifelong fascination was born. If I’d lived in a country where you could study Mayan archaeology, and hated the outdoorsy life a lot less, who knows, maybe I’d have studied the Maya myself.

Nowadays I don’t spend too much time worrying about these types of things. What’s the point? Chances are you’ve picked the wrong thing to be gloomy about. Meanwhile life might pass you by. And whether or not you believe in an afterlife - this is probably your only chance to experience life on Earth. You should enjoy it while you can!