http://my.hsj.org/Portals/2/logos/__TFMF_fig4be55s44qj3552bwjpiv3_47cbebac-86fd-49f5-abda-23875feba596_0___Selected.jpg en-us Copyright 2008 - All Rights Reserved. Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:30:02 GMT 15 By Oriana Chacon/Staff Reporter
Recently, the date December 21, 2012, has gotten some special attention as well as the title “Doomsday.” According to common belief on the Mayan Calendar, this date is scheduled to bring a huge catastrophe that would signify the end of time.     Although popular in the historic and scientific world, this belief has found its way to mainstream society with a larger amount of people waiting for “Doomsday” to happen.     Some people who believe in Revelations and the apocalypse claim that the Mayan Calendar predicts the end of the world, but before getting into conjectures, one has to know what the Mayans truly left in their magical calendar.     The Mayans were a civilization that flourished from about 300 A.D. until around 900 A.D. in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula and parts of Central America. They were a highly sophisticated civilization who left entire networks of cities, art and writings, and various calendars. They predicted lunar eclipses and other astronomical events incredibly accurately.     There are two calendars: the TZOLK’IN, or the count of days, and the HAAB’, or the solar calendar. Since these two calendars combined have a cycle of 52 years, only the Mayans devised the Long Count calendar to count the long-term passage of time. There are 20 baktuns in this calendar (about 400 years each).     This calendar tracks around 5000 years (according to writings on stone of past cycles) and then resets at year zero. This resetting is drawing near and will hit on December 21, 2012.       Many people have different approaches on what this means, with some preaching the end of the world while others just predicting the beginning of a new era.     With the alignment of our sun directly to the center of the Milky Way Galaxy in 2012, scientists are also talking about the possible catastrophes this will trigger. Volcanic eruptions, solar flares, and magnetic field shifts are all on the list but some may differ in opinion.     Mr. Holbrook, teacher of AP human geography here at Felix Varela, who studied in the Yucatan and visited the Mayan cities, says “people that believe in Revelations see it as another prediction of the end of the world; but I think for the Mayans it was a cycle of life.”     In fact there have been approximately three other cycles of the calendar, and last time the Long Count restarted humans were in the ice age.     Another social studies teacher, Mr. Michael Avello, said “every time the clock ticks, an old era dies and a new one begins. They said this comes with disasters, if they predicted lunar eclipses pretty accurately then one should look out for this year.”     The truth is no one is clear on what is going to happen in the year 2012 and the Mayans only left their accurate calendar to say when this cycle ends but this does not mean the end of existence; it could very well mean the beginning of a new epoch.     Hollywood, however, has made sure that this global rumor goes accompanied by an impacting, accelerating movie premiering on November 13, 2012 entitled ‘2012.’     Directed by Roland Emmerich who has also directed such apocalyptic blockbusters as ‘Independence Day’ and ‘The Day After Tomorrow,’ the movie will star John Cusack as a researcher who will try to counteract the events that are predicted by the Mayan Calendar. ]]> Fri, 29 May 2009 19:11:01 GMT