Twenty-Twelve

I have heard from many-a-friend that December 12, 2012 is the last day we will all live. It's not just the movie 2012 that has got people thinking something catastrophic may happen, it's the numerous traces of archaeological evidence. I don't believe the media's portrayal of this event, though I can't help but believe the Mayans for their predictions of life up until this point have been eerily accurate. There isn't much information regarding what the Mayans thought would happen in 2012, but the consensus of opinion is that there will be great change. To some people this means a positive, spiritual change, but others think that a disastrous event may have been predicted. The Mayans truly were intelligent people and their civilization inhabited a region encompassing southern Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Belize & western Honduras, and flourished between the third and tenth centuries AD, but by 1200 AD their society had collapsed for reasons unknown. When the Spanish conquistadors arrived, descendants still occupied the area, and still spoke the Mayan language, but were unaware of the cities their forefathers had created.

It wasn't until the late 18th century that explorers first investigated the dense Guatemalan rain forest and came across plazas, monoliths, temples and pyramids, each decorated with pictures and hieroglyphs. The Mayans had been keeping historical records, using a script which mixed ideographic and phonetic elements. Some of their writing still exists on stone monuments that recount civil events and record their calendric and astronomical knowledge. Diego de Landa was a Spanish priest who in 1562came across Mayan books that he felt were the devil's work and saw to it that they were burned, with only three books surviving. Consequently the majority of Mayan knowledge and history was lost.

The most important of the surviving books was what is now called the Dresden Codex. It is a strange book, inscribed with hieroglyphs, which no one understood until 1880. At that time Ernst FØrstemann managed to crack the code of the Mayan calendar, making it possible for others to translate the many dated inscriptions found on buildings and other ancient Mayan artifacts.

He discovered that the Codex contained detailed astrological tables, which calculated the year to be 365.2420 days long, way more accurate than the Julian calendar that we use today. The tables were used exclusively by the Mayan astronomers to predict the solstices and equinoxes, the path of the planets in our solar system, the cycles of Venus and Mars, and other celestial phenomena. The knowledge found in these books and codes, combined with the uncovering of mysterious pyramids, demonstrate that the Mayans had knowledge to rival the Greeks and Egyptians! I just find this so baffling that few have taken the time to truly appreciate the intelligence of our ancestors until this spire of 2012 that we all hope to survive.

It's not just the Mayans predictions either; people are saying that the sun's activity is slowly increasing and that we may even be destined to go through another Ice Age. Who knows? All I can say is that the Mayans have been right up until now and it would be unlike their previous history to be wrong.