Not only did that happen, but the find also addresses the end-of-the-world scenario attached to the Mayan calendar.
It was a Tulane University archeologist who made the find at La Corona in Guatemala, a small site with an amazing number of hieroglyphics.
The fears have been running rampant among some people that the world may end this year, due in part to 'supposed' predictions from the Mayan calendar. A recent survey about that showed that ten percent of the worldwide population believes something dire is going to happen to the Earth this year.
Marcello Canuto, Director of the Middle American Research Institute at Tulane University is just back from Guatemala, and he says La Corona, which means The Crown in Spanish, has been an exciting find. "This particular site was the mysterious Q site in Mayan archeology that we knew existed somewhere but hadn't really been found yet.
"This year we found this hieroglyphic staircase, where I found two panels in their original location in 2005. This year we found 12!"
Even though the La Corona site has been looted over the years, countless hieroglyphics and inscriptions remain, including one that he says makes it clear the Mayans were not looking for the entire Earth to stop functioning this year.
He says it's amazing to find the 2012 reference this year. And Canuto says this find makes it clear the world will go on for centuries. "What the text is saying is that the king is really powerful and he continues to be powerful, and that his reign and that the world order, think of it that way, sort of a metaphorical thing, that the world order will go on forever and forever.
"So it's sort of like actually trying to use their calendar not to predict the end of the world, but try to avoid the end of the world. They're trying to say the world will continue, it's a grand cycle. 'I'm a king of great importance and I will continue to rule.'"
But Canuto does wonder why people are looking to the Maya for predictive capabilities. "That's what I've always found curious, is that everyone worries about the Maya predicting the end of the world in 2012, but nobody worries about the fact that they couldn't predict their own collapse."
Canuto says the text makes it clear the world will go on for centuries, and that the Mayans did not consider the calendar phase that ends this year to be the final chapter for mankind
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