Mayans Never Predicted World Would End in 2012

[angus]

Actually, the Long Count ends on December 21 (or 23) 2012.  The well-known stela at Copán in Honduras, which I have visited, records this date as a 29-figure number.  For the Maya and a few other mesoamerican civilizations, the end of the Long Count does correspond to the end one cycle of the world and ushers in another cycle.  From what I have read, this was not a time to fear, but a time to rejoice, because the incoming new age is a reassertion of order.  I'd read about Saturno's discovery in one of my issues of Bostonia, the Boston University Alumni magazine.  (Not a recent issue either. Saturno is a BU professor of archaeology, and they were spotlighting his discovery about three years ago, as I recall.)  Saturno's discovery does not change the fact that the Long Count (the current version of the world) will still end on or about the winter solstice of this year, so it is accurate to say that the Mayans predicted the end of the world in what we now call 2012.  Whether you want to make that a day to rejoice is another matter.  Saturno is smart enough to know all this, but the reporters probably wanted something pithy to print.