THE MAYA APOCALYPSE WHEN?
A global poll conducted by Ipsos in 2012 found that 10 per cent of people believed the world was very shortly about to come to an end. The source of that global fear was a rather curious one: the ancient Maya. According to many experts, the Maya’s Long Count calendar reached the end of a cycle on 21 December 2012 – at which point, numerous nervous individuals feared, an overwhelming apocalypse would be unleashed. Some more optimistic people, conversely, hoped for a New Age-style global transformation.
The Maya ‘prophecy’ embedded itself in popular culture. Websites speculated on humanity’s chances of surviving 2012, while Hollywood was also caught up in the excitement. The 2009 blockbuster movie envisaged the human race almost wiped out by cataclysmic events, as heralded by the Maya. “We were warned,” was the tagline on the film’s poster, and at one point during the action a character sagely notes: “The Mayans saw this coming thousands of years ago.” But is
