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2012 sparks interest in Mayan calendar - but is it wrong?

Posted by Team Boxwish 4 months ago

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It’s not often that the Mayan calendar muscles into conversation here at Boxwish (and by not often, we mean never). However, that might not be the case for much longer with new disaster epic, 2012 looming on the horizon (it hits cinemas this Friday). The action blockbuster starring John Cusack looks at the Mayan calendar’s prediction that the world will end on this date and as such director Emmerich (who loves trashing humanity with past efforts including Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow) has really gone to town, laying siege to a number of international landmarks, with the Himalayas wiped out by a tsunami and L.A. saying sayonara thanks to a colossal earthquake (though an Islamic place of worship avoids onscreen destruction, see Related Content, right). But is this destruction actually true to the prediction? Some experts say a big fat no.

The movie and its online promotions have sparked interest in the Mayan prediction, and along with other books and websites the phenomenon is snowballing. Yet scholars are trying to temper the film-inspired craze by assuring people that the Mayans didn’t predict the end of the world, just the “birth of a new age”.

John Major Jenkins, who has penned 10 books on the culture of the Mayan, confirms "the idea that the Mayans predicted the end of the world in 2012 is actually not the case.” While Eleanor Harrison-Buck, a fellow brain on the Mayan, adds: “Rather than simply the end of the world, the Maya would no doubt have viewed the end of this great cycle as an important and powerful time of reordering and renewal of the world.”

Scientists have also weighed in on the argument, reassuring us that there’s no evidence suggesting the cataclysmic events of the movie are due to happen. So let’s all breathe a sigh of relief and enjoy the big screen carnage of 2012.

UPDATE: Get John Cusack’s watch from 2012 here.

[via MB]

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