Apocalypse now, or maybe later: Mayan predictions?

From Washington Times: Apocalypse now, or maybe later: Mayan predictions?
CHARLOTTE, May 26, 2012 — We are only halfway through the year, but there has been much discussion about the Maya Long Count calendar which ends its current 5,125 year period in 2012.

For those who believe in the impending apocalypse, such predictions can have advantages. There’s no need to vote in November. And, since the calendar ends on December 21, why bother with Christmas shopping either.

Interest in the Mundo Maya countries of Mexico, Guatemala and Belize is rapidly increasing. Surges in bookings should last throughout the year as the “big event” draws ever closer, with year-long celebrations ranging from symposiums, concerts, cultural exhibitions, festivals and anything in between.

Most of the talk centers upon the “end of the world” because it’s easy to understand and the media can work that angle to death (Pardon the pun). The truth is that many Maya descendants have no inkling about all the fuss. Some who have thought about it, will not respond with an expected answer. What they will notice however, is more money in their economy thanks to an influx of media and curious visitors.

With many archaeological sites throughout the country, Belize is regarded as the “heartland of the Maya.” Even without the calendar as a catalyst, the ruins are fascinating from both a historical and a cultural perspective. These grand urban centers with their temples, ball courts, shrines and exotic carvings are nestled within dense forests and seemingly inaccessible terrain. Yet, somehow they thrived until the 10th century when the cities were mysteriously abandoned.

While individual Maya sites have many similarities, closer inspection reveals that they each possess their own characteristics. What that means for the traveler is that a visit to a single ruin may provide an overview and flavor of the Maya civilization, but you really need to explore several locations to get a more complete perspective.

If there is only one option, Lamanai in the Orange Walk District of northern Belize is a good choice. Not only is Lamanai one of the largest ceremonial centers in Belize, it was also continuously inhabited longer than most of the others. Best of all, Lamanai features a Maya calendar which rests on the ground near a residential section of the ruins known as the Jaguar Temple.

Tucked within the forest along the shores of the New River Lagoon, one of Lamanai’s unique characteristics is its proximity to water. The most picturesque, and most interesting, way to get there is on the lagoon with a scenic hour-long boat journey from Orange Walk Town.

Elegantly rustic accommodations are available at Lamanai Outpost Lodge situated at the end of the lagoon less than five minutes by boat from the Lamanai site.

Major excavations of the area have been underway for nearly 40 years, but significant numbers of ruins remain to be unearthed. Even so, three of the most impressive temples have been reclaimed, making Lamanai an extremely desirable place for the uninitiated adventurer to quickly obtain solid insights into Maya culture.

Lamanai is one of the few Maya cities where subsequent populations built on top of existing structures rather than destroying them. That presents an archaeological predicament, because it is impossible to reach earlier constructions without destroying what has already been excavated.

At 125-feet, the tallest ruin at Lamanai is the High Temple which is believed to date as early as 100 BC. Hardy visitors who make the challenging climb to the summit above the treetops will be rewarded with a magnificent view.

The Mask Temple is so-named because it is flanked by two 13-foot limestone masks of an early Maya king. The masks depict characteristics the Olmec civilization which thrived from 1,200 BC to about 400 BC and was famous for its artwork, especially “colossal heads.” Two burial tombs discovered within the temple date to the 5th century.

Much of the third major structure at Lamanai, the Temple of the Jaguar, is still under ground due to the accumulation of dirt and jungle. Known for the jaguar heads carved into the front of the temple, the building is also interesting because it faces one of the Maya calendars which have, and will, become the source of much analysis throughout the year.

Here’s the simple solution to cut through all the discussion between now and December. The Maya calendar does, indeed, end on December 21, 2012. But it starts anew on December 22nd, and it’s a sure bet none of us will be around when that one ends 5,000-plus years from now. It’s all just part of a cycle. One cycle ends and a new one begins.

Most important for travelers heading to somewhere in the Mundo Maya in 2012 is that it’s a great adventure. Experience it and have fun. Savor the celebration. And, for those who decide to skip the shopping, there will still be three days left to get it done before Christmas.(http://www.belizetourism.org/)

Maya History Suggests Trade Patterns Played Key Role In Collapse

From Huffington Post: Maya History Suggests Trade Patterns Played Key Role In Collapse

Maya history--and the civilization's "collapse"--continue to occupy the minds of archeologists. Some research points to a series of droughts as playing an important role in the Maya demise. Other researchers propose the ancient Maya were less resilient to fight for survival due to religious beliefs.

And now Dr. Gary Feinman, an archeologist at Chicago's Field Museum, has suggested a new explanation. When he came face-to-face with a detailed map of trade patterns from an episode of Maya history--it was his "aha" moment, he said.

Dr. Feinman and a team of researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago studied how the precious material obsidian, or volcanic glass, was traded and used by inland Maya communities during the Classic Period, just years before the mysterious Maya collapse.

When this research was displayed on the map, an interesting pattern emerged. The originally inland trade system evolved into a primarily coastal system, which suggested the inland Maya communities no longer had easy access to obsidian and other resources. After that, the populations in inland areas drastically declined.

"The collapse of these inland riverine centers has been a topic of discussion for a hundred years at least, and there are lots of ideas that have been put forth as possibly being responsible," Dr. Feinman told The Huffington Post. "Our study suggests that at least one of those factors may have been this changing route of exchange and the decline of access--or ability of people at these inland centers--to get obsidian through the riverine trade routes."

Eventually, the coastal trade routes grew in importance and the obsidian sources that were traded along the coast became predominant in the area. The researchers’ study doesn't directly address why there was a shift in trade routes, but Dr. Feinman said there could have been conflict between communities, making the routes precarious or impassable.

"It’s really kind of astounding," Dr. Feinman said. "Some of these data had been published before but when you look at the patterns of change graphically and you look at the maps... all of a sudden it’s sort of 'wow.' You see new things."

Trade of any resource--not just obsidian--was important for Maya survival. But Dr. Feinman cautioned not to misconstrue this research as the ultimate explanation for the collapse of the Mayan civilization.

"People assume that when a civilization collapses it’s likely that there’s one catastrophic event that leads to that decline and generally that is not the case," he said. "Even if a catastrophic event has an effect, it’s also because there’s some underlying issues, or tensions, or problems in the society before that environmental shift or change."

While we're going there, the whole idea of the Maya collapse is somewhat a misconception, Dr. Feinman said.

"Maya still exist today," he said. "Mayan languages, aspects of their culture, still exist today. Certainly the DNA of ancient Maya still survive in living populations… So one misconception is the idea that the Maya disappeared, when of course they did not."

Dr. Feinman and his research team's findings were published online May 23, 2012 in the journal Antiquity.

I crave your indulgence

My mother's sister is visiting for three days.


My mom's deaf as a post, my dad can't be bothered to get out of his chair, so I will be doing the entertaining - the chauffeuring and the talking and the communicating - for the next three days.


So I'll be posting back here Thursday.


Thanks for your patience.

Will the World End in 2012? Noted Chicago Pastor Challenges Mayan Calendar Prediction

Why do people think the Mayan calendar predicts the end of the world? Because even though it has been revealed to be a false interpretation of the evidence, newspapers continue to spout this drivel. (But then, they continue to report Christians who believe in myths of the end of the world also...)

From Sacramento Bee PR Newswire
CHICAGO, May 15, 2012 -- /PRNewswire/ -- A new Reuters survey reveals one in seven people worldwide believe the world will end in their lifetime. But if you want to know how it's going to happen, don't look to Nostradamus or the Mayan calendar for answers.

When it comes to predicting the future, the Bible is an unimpeachable source of information, says Dr. Erwin Lutzer, senior pastor of the venerable Moody Church in Chicago and author of The King Is Coming: Preparing to Meet Jesus (Moody Publishers).

The book outlines 10 events recorded in Scripture that will take place at the end of the world. The author points to the Bible's track record as proof of its reliability.

"All Bible prophecies eventually become true history," Dr. Lutzer explains. "There was a time when the birth, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus was prophecy. Today, it is history. Just so, the return of Christ is prophecy today, but it will be history at some future date."

The end of the Mayan calendar has many people speculating that the world will end on December 21, 2012. While he agrees that world events seem to be shaping up for the end of days, Dr. Lutzer cautions against putting too much stock in this prediction.

"When we open the pages of the Bible we are not left to the confusing intention of a cyclical calendar," the author notes. "In the prophecies of the Bible, nations are named, geographical locations are described ... Antichrist is not only described, but the speeches he will eventually give are summarized."

So just how close are we to these events taking place? "A day closer than we were yesterday!" Dr. Lutzer says. "We must humbly confess that we don't know exactly when God will wrap up history."

He concludes: "Regardless of one's view of end time events, the Bible teaches the visible, literal return of Jesus back to earth. It teaches the personal judgment of all individuals; it teaches an eternal heaven and an eternal hell. We don't have to know when all of this will happen in order for Bible prophecy to change our entire perspective on life."

Painted Maya Walls Reveal Calendar Writing

From the New York Times: Painted Maya Walls Reveal Calendar Writing

Hacking through jungle growth and clearing away rubble, archaeologists made their way to excavate a house buried at the edge of ruins of a large Maya city in the remote Petén lowlands of northeastern Guatemala. It turned out to have been the studio for royal scribes with a taste for art and a devotion to the heavens as the source of calculations for the ancient culture’s elaborate calendars.       

Tyrone Turner/National Geographic

The painted figure of a man is illuminated through a doorway to the dwelling.

Enlarge This Image

Tyrone Turner/National Geographic

Angelyn Bass cleans and stabilizes the surface of a wall that shows the figure of a man who may have been the town scribe.

Inside, two of the three standing masonry walls were decorated with a faded but still impressive mural, including a painting of a seated king with a scepter and wearing blue feathers. It seemed that, like the Alec Guinness character in the 1958 movie “The Horse’s Mouth,” no Maya artist could abide a wall without a touch of inspired paint. The third wall, on the east side, appeared to have served as the scribes’ blackboard.

On its badly eroded surface, along with black-painted human figures, were scrawled Mayan glyphs and columns of numbers in the form of bars and dots (bars for the number 5 and dots for 1), based on observations of motions of the Sun, the Moon and planets. The glyphs were delicately painted in red or black. From time to time, thin coats of plaster had been applied over texts to provide a clean slate for new calculations. Still other texts were incised into the plaster surface.

The early-ninth-century workshop of scribes and calendar priests was the first important discovery in the ruins of a Maya city known today as Xultún, found a century ago but largely unexplored until the past few years. Archaeologists said the calendar writing on the wall appeared to be already well advanced several centuries earlier than the examples previously known, mainly from the Dresden Codex, a bark-paper book from the period shortly before the Spanish arrived in the early 16th century.

Rest assured, however, that nothing written on those walls foretells the world coming to an end on Dec. 21, 2012, as some have feared through a misinterpretation of the Maya Long Count calendar. That date is simply when one cycle of the Maya calendar ends and a new one begins.

The discovery at Xultún, made by a team led by William A. Saturno of Boston University, was reported in the journal Science, published online on Thursday, and at a teleconference with reporters. The National Geographic Society, which supported the excavations, will describe the research in the June issue of its magazine.

“For the first time,” Dr. Saturno said, “we get a real look at this kind of work space in a Maya city and the scribes’ tight connections to the royal court.”

David Stuart, professor of Mesoamerican art and writing at the University of Texas at Austin, who deciphered the glyphs, said, “This is tremendously exciting,” noting that the columns of numbers interspersed with glyphs inside circles was “the kind of thing that only appears in one place — the Dresden Codex.”

Some of the columns of numbers, for example, are topped by the profile of a lunar deity and represent multiples of 177 or 178, numbers that the archaeologists said were important in ancient Maya astronomy. Eclipse tables in the Dresden Codex are based on sequences of multiples of such numbers. Some texts “defy translation right now,” he said, and some writing is barely legible even with infrared imagery and other enhancements.

Dr. Stuart was an author of the report, along with Dr. Saturno; Anthony F. Aveni, professor of astronomy and anthropology at Colgate University; and Franco Rossi, an archaeologist at Boston University.

One goal of the Maya calendar keepers, the researchers wrote in the journal article, “was to seek harmony between sky events and sacred rituals.” They observed that the calculations appeared to represent various calendrical cycles the Maya were noted for: the 260-day ceremonial calendar, the 365-day solar calendar, the 584-day cycle of Venus and the 780-day cycle of Mars.

They said the sets of the Xultún calculations were “undoubtedly carefully contrived” and “may have been devised to create schemes for synchronizing predictable events connected with the movement of Mars, Venus, the Moon and possibly Mercury.” Why these particular calculations, ranging in duration from 935 to 6,703 years, were used is uncertain, the researchers said.

The principal scribe, who may have been related to the royal family, also left his mark on the north wall, near the presumed king’s picture. Four long numbers there represent dates that stretch over 7,000 years. The scientists said this was the first place that seems to tabulate all these cycles in this way. Another number scratched in the plaster records a date that translates to A.D. 813. This was in the last century of the Classic Period, before the Maya civilization collapsed into Post-Classic decline.

Xultún is a 12-square-mile site where archaeologists estimate that tens of thousands of people once lived. Its first temples and monuments were constructed in the first centuries B.C., only five miles from other Maya ruins at San Bartolo, where in 2001 Dr. Saturno uncovered some of the oldest extant wall paintings at a large ceremonial center. The last known carved monument at Xultún dates to A.D. 890, in the twilight of the Classic Period.

One of Dr. Saturno’s students, Maxwell Chamberlain, came upon the scribes’ buried studio two years ago while following looters’ trenches through the rain forest. The first surprise was that any of the paintings and writings had survived the humidity of the Guatemalan lowlands. The building, part of a larger elite residential complex, was designated No. 54 of 56 structures when mapped by Harvard scientists in the 1970s. Archaeologists suspect that thousands of other houses remain uncounted.

Although there may be reasons to worry about the future, the researchers emphasized that nothing in Maya beliefs or calendars warranted hoisting “The End Is Nigh” placards. A change in the Long Count cycle, said Dr. Aveni, an astroarchaeologist, is like the odometer of a car rolling over from 120,000 to 130,000. “The car gets a step closer to the junkyard as the numbers turn over,” he said. “The Maya just start over.”

Oldest Mayan calendar found, and it goes way beyond Dec. 12, 2012

From Christian Science Monitor: Oldest Mayan calendar found, and it goes way beyond Dec. 12, 2012

The oldest-known version of the ancient Maya calendar has been discovered adorning a lavishly painted wall in the ruins of a city deep in the Guatemalan rainforest.

The hieroglyphs, painted in black and red, along with a colorful mural of a king and his mysterious attendants, seem to have been a sort of handy reference chart for court scribes in A.D. 800 — the astronomers and mathematicians of their day. Contrary to popular myth, this calendar isn't a countdown to the end of the world in December 2012, the study researchers said.

"The Mayan calendar is going to keep going for billions, trillions, octillions of years into the future," said archaeologist David Stuart of the University of Texas, who worked to decipher the glyphs. "Numbers we can't even wrap our heads around."

A brilliant surprise
The newly discovered calendar is complex indeed, featuring stacked bars and dots representing fives and ones and recording lunar cycles in six-month chunks of time. But it wasn't these mathematical notations that first caught the archeologists' eye. William Saturno, an archaeologist from Boston University, was mapping the ancient Maya city of Xultun in northeast Guatemala in 2010 when one of his undergraduate students peered into an old trench dug by looters and reported seeing traces of ancient paint.

The discovery was "certainly nothing to write home about," Saturno told reporters on Thursday (May 10), in advance of releasing details of the murals in this week's issue of the journal Science. Paint doesn't preserve well in the rain forest climate of Guatemala, and Saturno figured that the faint red and black lines his student had found weren't going to yield much information. But he felt he had a responsibility to excavate the room the looters had tried to reach, if only to be able to report the size of the structure along with the paint finding.

As Saturno continued along the old trench to the back wall, he was shocked to run into a brilliantly painted portrait: a Mayan king, sitting on his throne, wearing a red crown with blue feathers flowing out behind him. Another figure peeks out from behind him. On an adjoining wall, three loincloth-clad figures sit, wearing feathered headdresses. One is captioned "Older Brother Obsidian," or "Senior Obsidian," a still-mysterious title. Next to the king, a man painted in brilliant orange wearing jade bracelets reaches out with a stylus, likely identifying him as a scribe. He is labeled as "Younger Brother Obsidian," or perhaps "Junior Obsidian." [See Photos of the Mayan murals]

It's not the end of the world
These paintings — covering the west and north walls of the small, 6-foot-by-6-foot room — weren't the only surprise Xultun had to offer. On the east wall, someone had painted a series of small, complex hieroglyphics. This, the researchers soon realized, was a calendar.

The calendar seemed to have been added after the murals were completed, as some of the numbers cover up painted figures on the wall. It's almost as if an ancient scribe got sick of flipping through a document to find his timekeeping chart and decided to put it on the wall for at-a-glance reference, Stuart said.

"It's kind of like having a whiteboard in your office where you're writing down formulas that you want to remember," he said.

The Maya recorded time in a series of cycles, including 400-year chunks called baktuns. It's these baktuns that have led to rumors of an end-of-the-world catastrophe on Dec. 21, 2012 — on that date, a cycle of 13 baktuns will be complete. But the idea that this means the end of the world is a misconception, Stuart said. In fact, Maya experts have known for a long time that the calendar doesn't end after the 13th baktun. It simply begins a new cycle. And the calendar encompasses much larger units than the baktun.

"There were 24 units of time they actually could have incorporated into their calendar," Stuart said. "Here, we're only seeing five units and they're still really big."

In one column, the ancient scribe even worked out a cycle of time recording 17 baktuns, the researchers found. In another spot, someone etched a "ring number" into the wall. These notations were used to record time in a previous cycle, thousands of years into the past. The calendar also appears to note the cycles of Mars and Venus, the researchers said. Symbols of gods head the top of each lunar cycle, suggesting that each cycle had its own patron deity.

"There was a lot more to the Maya calendar than just 13 baktuns," Stuart said.

Scratching the surface
This ancient "wall calendar" is a major find, because the first known calendar and astronomical tables before this time came from the Dresden Codex, a book that dates to the 11th or 12th centuries. Most likely, Saturno said, the wall calendar and the Dresden Codex both arose from earlier books that long ago rotted away. [8 Grisly Archaeological Discoveries]

The mural room gives an unprecedented glimpse into the work lives of Mayan scientists, Stuart said. The mural room is in a compound with several other rooms, which were collapsed and built over in later years. The murals only survived, because, instead of collapsing the room, Mayan engineers filled it with rubble and then built on top of it.

"This is clearly a space where someone important was living, this important household of the noble class, and here you also have a mathematician working in that space," Stuart said. "It's a great illustration of how closely those roles were connected in Mayan society."

Kings would have been extremely interested in timekeeping, Stuart said, because part of their job was to conduct rituals of renewal at certain times. Unfortunately, the name of the king pictured in the mural room has been lost.

Although Xultun was first discovered in 1915, less than 0.1 percent has been explored, Saturno said. Looters damaged much of the ancient city in the 1970s, meaning much of historical significance has been lost. But archaeologists still don't even know how far the boundaries of the town extend.
"[That] investigations can begin and in a house like this we can find something we've never seen before only speaks to the great wealth of scientific material that remains in Guatemala in the Maya area for us to discover," Saturno said.

The excavations of the mural room were funded by the National Geographic Society

2012: End of the World or Consciousness Revolution?

From HuffPost Healthy Living: 2012: End of the World or Consciousness Revolution?
With few exceptions, the Mayan prophecy about the end of the cosmic cycle has been misinterpreted as predicting the actual physical destruction of humanity and the material world. This is similar to the misinterpretation of the term "apocalypse" by Christian fundamentalists, particularly the millions of American Christians who believe that at the time of this global destruction they will experience "rapture" and be united with Jesus. The original and literal meaning of the term apocalypse, however, is not "destruction" but "lifting of the veil" or "revelation." It referred to the disclosure of secrets, hidden from the majority of humanity, to certain privileged persons. Based on my research into non-ordinary states of consciousness, I believe in a radically different, more optimistic interpretation of the Mayan prophecy. Instead of predicting a physical destruction of the material world, the Mayan prophecy might imply the possibility of a mass inner transformation of humanity -- the end of a world dominated by unbridled violence and insatiable greed. The Mayans were indeed accomplished astronomers. More than 2,000 years ago they noticed that the position of the winter solstice sun was slowly shifting toward an alignment with the galactic axis. This movement (precession) is caused by the wobble of the rotational axis of the earth. The Mayans concluded that major changes of cosmic proportions would occur at the time of this auspicious solar/galactic alignment that occurs only once every 25,800 years. But in addition to making sophisticated astronomical observations, the ancient Mayans were also keen explorers of their inner worlds. We have ample pictorial evidence that they used various "technologies of the sacred" for this purpose, including the cactus Lophophora Williamsii (peyote), Psilocybe mushrooms, Salvia divinatorum (also known as diviner's sage), morning glory seeds, wild tobacco, balche (a fermented drink made from the tree Lonchocarpus longistylus and honey), and skin secretions of the toad Bufo marinus.

For the last 50 years, I have used "technologies of the sacred" in order to research the modern human psyche and its potential for healing. In my case, this was clinical research with psychedelics as well as numerous workshops and a training program using breathwork. In a supportive environment and under responsible guidance, individuals can use these techniques to experience states of consciousness that are both healing, informative, and transformational. I call these states "holotropic" -- meaning that they move us toward wholeness.

In holotropic states of consciousness, it is possible for individuals to obtain profound revelations about the universe -- far beyond the limits of their everyday imagination. And often, in such states, individuals can perceive a meaningful correlation between inner experiences and outer events.

Although the modern, post-industrial consciousness tends to dismiss this idea, the perception of the universe as an organic whole in which everything is meaningfully interconnected and the human psyche is a microcosm that reflects the macrocosm is a typical feature of profound inner experiences. In holotropic states the Mayans thus might have envisioned a meaningful connection between their inner experiences, terrestrial events, and the movements of celestial bodies.

Another key insight from my research is that individuals who enter holotropic states repeatedly will experience a profound transformation -- a process of psychospiritual "death" and rebirth. This process can be "apocalyptic" in the truest sense of the word, in that it lifts the veil on their previously unseen spiritual nature.

And yet, for individuals to experience that lifting of the veil, or revelation, they must let go of their previous identities. And this "death" can provoke tremendous fear of destruction, a protracted struggle with existential issues, and violent resistance. Given this evidence, it is hard not to conclude that the current behavior of our species is a kind of unconscious "acting out" of our inner fear of transformation.

To look around at current events, one might conclude that our world is indeed falling apart. And whether or not this was predicted by ancient Mayan seers, we are clearly involved in a dramatic race for time that has no precedent in the entire history of humanity. What is at stake is nothing less than the future of humanity and of life on this planet.

Many of the people with whom I have worked saw in their holotropic visions humanity at a critical crossroad -- facing either collective annihilation or an evolutionary jump in consciousness of unprecedented nature and dimension. The philosopher-poet Terence McKenna put it very succinctly: "The history of the silly monkey is over, one way or another." We either undergo a radical transformation of our species or we might not survive.

The final outcome of the crisis we are facing is ambiguous and uncertain; it lends itself to pessimistic or optimistic interpretation, and each of them can be supported by existing data. If we continue the old strategies, which in their consequences are clearly extremely destructive and self-destructive, it is unlikely that modern civilization will survive.

However, if a sufficient number of people undergo a process of deep inner transformation, we might reach a stage and level of consciousness at which we will deserve the proud name we have given to our species: homo sapiens sapiens (the wise people) -- and live in a new world that will have little resemblance to the old.

Mayan Stone Engraving and the End of the World

From PRI's The World: Mayan Stone Engraving and the End of the World
For the Geo Quiz, we asked you to name a city where you can find a Mayan stone supposedly predicting the end of the world.

Oh, and with a swim-up bar nearby.

Well, it was a bit of a trick question.

A stone calendar said to predict the end of days is in the ruined Mayan city of Coba.

That’s a couple hours by car from Cancun and its swim-up bars.

So … we’ll accept both answers.

Reporter Jake Warga traveled to the area to experience this mix of tourist decadence and doomsday scenario.

SEE THE SLIDE SHOW BY VISITING THE LINK ABOVE

Mayan 2012 Apocalypse Debunked in Philly Exhibit

From Fox News Latino: Mayan 2012 Apocalypse Debunked in Philly Exhibit
The Mayan Apocalypse has been perpetuated in pop culture – in movies and through splashy tabloid headlines – even though it’s been widely debunked in archeological circles.

In Mexico and Central American, the craze over the supposed solstice has become a point of attraction in Mexico and Central America, where Mayan ruins have planned tourist events around doomsday predictors, who believe the Mayan calendar when it says the world will end Dec. 21, 2012.

But to learn more about the Mayan apocalypse, Americas no longer have to go that far.

The Penn Museum in Philadelphia has opened a new exhibit that examines the civilization's ancient kingdoms, intricate calendar systems and current culture.

Experts at the museum apparently give little credence to the apocalypse myth, considering the show runs through early 2013. But they say the legend offers a chance to engage people about ancient and modern Maya society.

"Maya 2012: Lords of Time" features artifacts excavated from the historic Maya ruins of Copan in Honduras, including burial jewelry, food vessels and ceramic figures. Honduras President Porfirio Lobo Sosa is scheduled to cut the ribbon when the exhibit opens on Saturday.

The show also uses interactive displays to explain the culture's glyph writing and sophisticated timetables. The upshot is that while it's human nature to seek ancient insight into the current world, people should not interpret the Maya calendar as predicting a cataclysmic event.

"It's just a turn of a cycle," said curator Loa Traxler.

Regarded as one of the world's greatest early societies, the Maya lived for centuries in parts of Mexico and Central America. Many of their iconic pyramids and other city remnants still stand in places like Copan, where 16 Maya kings ruled for about 400 years.

As early astronomers, the Maya devised various types of calendars by observing celestial movements. Their "Long Count" calendar begins in 3114 B.C. and marks time in roughly 394-year periods known as baktuns. Thirteen was a sacred number for the Maya, and some scholars believe the 13th baktun ends on Dec. 21, 2012.

Penn Museum experts say it ends Dec. 23, but that then another calendar cycle will begin — not Armageddon.

Traxler said while it's hard to trace the origin of the apocalypse prophecy, she described it as "a conflation of a lot of different ideas," including Aztec lore, Judeo-Christian end-of-days rhetoric and millennial hype. (Remember Y2K?)

Honduran officials don't seem concerned. Norma Cerrato, minister counselor of legal affairs for the country's U.S. embassy, said during a recent exhibit preview that she hopes it encourages people to visit the actual ruins. The show includes replicas of large stone carvings too delicate or unwieldy to leave Copan, designated a world heritage site by the United Nations' cultural agency.

"Regardless of what some may say about the December 2012 phenomenon, the people of Honduras are certain that this year provides us a unique opportunity to share a part of our history and culture with the world," Cerrato said.

Mexico, too, has designed a tourism campaign around the 2012 date. It's expected to bring an extra 12 million visitors to the country, possibly boosting tourism revenue by $14.6 billion, according to officials there.

Though the last independent Maya city was conquered by the Spanish in 1697, Traxler said about 7 million people currently identify as Maya. The exhibit ends with translated video interviews with a half-dozen Maya, some of whom are bemused by the hype.

Jose Huchim Herrera, a Yucatec Maya and archaeologist, said in a video that anyone talking about a 2012 catastrophe is clearly an outsider.

"The Maya say nothing," he said. "The Maya are very peaceful. They are not worried."

Why all these strange storms, warmer temps?

From the Brownsville (TX) Herald : Why all these strange storms, warmer temps?
Meteorologists are not giving much credence to what some say is the Mayan calendar’s prediction that the world will come to an end on Dec. 21.

They say the strange weather patterns South Texas and the rest of the United States have been experiencing have no connection to the Mayan calendar and what some are calling its doomsday message.

“That has nothing to do with the weather. I think on Dec. 22 we will all wake up that day and get ready for Christmas,” said Barry Goldsmith, warning coordination meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Brownsville.

The Mayan civilization, which reached its height from 300 A.D. to 900 A.D., had a talent for astronomy, the Associated Press reported.

Its Long Count calendar begins in 3,114 B.C., marking time in roughly 394-year periods known as Baktuns. Thirteen was a significant, sacred number for the Mayas, and they wrote that the 13th Baktun ends on Dec. 21, 2012, the AP reported. While some say the calendar predicts a cataclysmic event, others say that is a misinterpretation of the calendar.

A series of freak hailstorms in the Rio Grande Valley over the past few weeks and unusually warm temperatures are attributed to changing weather patterns and not much more, officials said.

“The reality is that sometimes it is just serendipity, the way the puzzle pieces come together in the atmosphere just right to give us an opportunity. I think the reason people get freaked out is that we don’t see it very often here,” Goldsmith said.

Unusual weather patterns have occurred across the nation during the first four months of the year, from dozens and dozens of tornado outbreaks in months that do not usually experience such a high amount, to unusually warm weather on the East Coast that brought temperatures near 90 degrees to the Boston area.

Goldsmith said the only way to put a finger on the weather is to look at the past decades to see if there appear to be any trends. It probably will not be until 2020 or 2030 that meteorologists can determine whether any trends are actually occurring.

“We have had some interesting years lately, but it hasn’t been enough to make a determination,” he said.

If you look at history, you will see that it shows there have been big tornadoes, big hailstorms and big snow storms, but it is probably because there are more people now seeing and videotaping the incidents that it seems like more of these weather events are occurring, Goldsmith said.

Officials are looking into the possibility that the changing weather patterns have something to do with the Arctic Oscillation changes, which have been increasing since the 1980s.

According to OSS Foundation, the Arctic Oscillation is a large scale mode of climate variability, which is characterized by winds circulating counterclockwise around the Arctic at around 55°N latitude.

“They are looking into that as a possible trend” with the weather shifting back and forth, he said.

“If that trend continues, basically we think that meteorologically the extremes will continue because these high oscillation patterns have been shown to correlate to extreme weather,” Goldsmith said.

According to the AP, the doomsday theories stem from a pair of tablets discovered in the 1960s at the archaeological site of Tortuguero in the Gulf of Mexico state of Tabasco that describe the return of a Mayan god at the end of a 13th period.

"The Maya are viewed by many westerners as exotic folks that were supposed to have had some special, secret knowledge," said Maya scholar Sven Gronemeyer in a previous AP article. "What happens is that our expectations and fears get projected on the Maya calendar."

Gronemeyer of La Trobe University in Australia compares the supposed Mayan prophecies to the "Y2K" hype, when people feared all computer systems would crash when the new millennium began on Jan. 1, 2000.

“I don’t think it has to do with the Mayan calendar. I don’t think we are sacrificial lamb,” said Dan Kottlowski, an expert senior meteorologist with AccuWeather.

“We watch the weather all over the world, especially in the United States and Texas, the thing is we see a lot of weird weather every day. Some of it makes the news and some of it doesn’t,” he said. Kottlowski said the weather pattern the area is currently experiencing is something that is normally experienced during the spring.

What makes this year’s weather somewhat “unique” is that there has been more of a southeasterly wind flow from Mexico to South Texas. Usually, the winds are either light or coming from the west of the area, Kottlowski said.

“When you have a large contrast between very warm weather and still the potential for cold weather to interact with that, you are going to see some very unusual situations setting up,” Kottlowski said.

“What I find in meteorology is that people have short memories. They forget that we’ve had these events before,” he said.