Phew! 2012 Doomsday Date May Be Wrong

Doomsday believers, you might be able to breathe
a sigh of relief.

The much-hyped "prediction" that, according to
the ancient Mayan calendar, the world will end on D
ec. 21, 2012, may be based on a miscalculation.

According to recent research, the mythological
date of the "end of days" may be off by 50 to 100
years.

To convert the ancient Mayan calendar to the
Gregorian (or modern) calendar, scholars use a
numerical value (called the GMT). But Gerardo
Aldana, a professor at the University of California,
Santa Barbara, says the data supporting the
widely-adopted conversion factor may be invalid.

In a chapter in the book "Calendars and Years II:
Astronomy and Time in the Ancient and Medieval
World," Aldana casts doubt on the accuracy of the
Mayan calendar correlation, saying that the 2012
prophecy as well as other historical dates may be
off.

"One of the principal complications is that there
are really so few scholars who know the
astronomy, the epigraphy and the archeology,"
Aldana said in a UCSB press release. "Because
there are so few people who are working on that,
you get people who don't see the full scope of the
problem. And because they don't see the full
scope, they buy things they otherwise wouldn't. It's
a fun problem."

Researcher Questions Accuracy of Mayan
Calendar's 2012 Prophecy and Other Dates

The GMT constant, named for early Mayan
scholars Joseph Goodman, Juan Martinez-
Hernandez and J. Eric S. Thompson, is partly based
on astronomical events. Those early Mayanists
relied heavily on dates found in colonial
documents written in Mayan languages and
recorded in the Latin alphabet, the release said.

A later scholar, American linguist and
anthropologist Floyd Lounsbury, further supported
the GMT constant.

But, through his research reconstructing Mayan
astronomical practices and reviewing data in the
archeological record, the release said Aldana
found weaknesses in Lounsbury's work that cause
the argument behind the GMT constant to fall
"like a stack of cards."

"This may not seem to be much, but what it does
is destabilize the entire argument," he said.

"A few scholars have stood up and said, 'No, the
GMT is wrong,'" Aldana said. "But in my opinion,
what they've done is try to provide alternatives
without looking at why the GMT is wrong in the
first place."

advertisement Phew! 2012 Doomsday Date May Be Wrong
Mayan Calendar's Doomsday Date May Be Off by 50 to 100 years, Research Shows
Despite research undercutting the 2012
apocalypse hype, films, websites and books will
likely continue to drive "end of days" mania to a
fever pitch.

A crop of iPhone applications count down to (or
capitalize on) the 2012 apocalypse, several
websites boast countdown clocks and 2012 news,
and, of course, there's been the march of movies
cashing in on the interest in eschatology, or the
study of the end of times.

Robert Thompson, professor of media and popular
culture at Syracuse University, said the interest
has been escalating since the advent of the 21st
century.

"When we got to the millennium, people tended to
get exorcised to mark the end of time," he told
ABCNews.com.

For some, the Y2K scare and then 9/11 provided
proof that the end is near. The tsunami in the
Indian Ocean and Hurricane Katrina in 2005, as
well as the 2008 near-collapse of the world
financial institutions only added more fuel to the
fire.

But the Mayan predictions have held the most
sway with believers.

At the height of that Mesoamerican civilization
from 300 to 900 A.D., advanced mathematics and
primitive astronomy flourished, creating what
many have called the most accurate calendar in
the world.

The Mayans predicted a final event that included a
solar shift, a Venus transit and violent
earthquakes.

ABC News