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Search The Tack
Stunts first home competition
Stunt's first home competition
March 22, 2024
When I arrived, to my surprise, a Piper Archer II had just landed and way taxiing back to the hangers.
Sunday's pit stop: A gallery by Joshua Tigges
March 2, 2024
A shot at partnership: BVU and Mercy College launch 3 + 1 nursing program
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March 1, 2024
Hot Dish literary magazine submissions open
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February 23, 2024

Predictions of an apocalypse

Predictions+of+an+apocalypse+

April Allen | Arts & Life Co-Editor

December 21st, 2012 could be the best or the worst day the world has ever seen. The Mayans predicted a change that would be noticed by the world, and this change could be good or bad. The overall sense is that this is the end of the world, or some people believe this is a bunch of “not-worth-their-time hype.” We will find out when December 21st comes in less than three weeks, but until that moment we can try to understand whether we need to hide in an underground bunker or carry on with our normal day.

Rumors have been circulating that people are contemplating mad ideas in the wake of the end of the world. Here at Buena Vista University (BVU) it isn’t causing students to hide out, but it does raise important contemplation in their minds. Sophomore Scotty Locati does not believe the world will end.

“I mostly say no, but it does raise the point of what if the world really does end, and have I done everything I set out to do?” Locati said.

The Mayans made a prediction there would be great change this year just before Christmas on the Winter Solstice. Of course they didn’t realize that if the world did actually end on December 21st, they were cutting off human kinds last Christmas ever by four days. The Mayans were completely isolated from any country who would believe in any form of Christianity until after their civilization had already hit its peak and was in a decline. When the Americas are discovered is the first time the Mayans are approached by Europeans. The Mayan civilization began in 2000 B.C. which is more than 4000 years ago. Their main source of food, and at times only source of food, was through agriculture, especially corn.

The Mayan calendar is the most important issue concerning the end of the world, and this of course is debated on how it is calculated and interpreted. Our way to calculate time is by a second, minute, hour, day, week, month, year, Olympian, decade, century, millennium, epoch, period, era, and eon. The Mayans had their own way to calculate time: one calendar based on the crops, the other calendar was the solar calendar. Their Ha’ab was 360 days and 20 Ha’abs made a Tun. 20 Tuns made a Baktun. 13 Baktuns are one long count. Of course there are other smaller time increments within the Ha’ab, Tun, Baktun, and Long count, but these are the basics in order to understand the argument of December 21st.

Time amounts for the Mayans are also debated still today, Dr. Edwin Barnhart, an archaeologist who discovered the Maya ruins of Ma’ax Na in Belize 1995, states in his explanation of the Long Count on his Mayan Calendar website that an era is an amount of time, but it’s not a certain time amount. A Mayan cycle could be the same.

At this moment we are in the fifth Long count which began on August 13th, 3113 B.C. and it ends on December 21st. At this time the fourth creation or era would begin, and this would mark the end of the 12th Baktun.

“Though Maya texts say nothing about what might happen at the 13th Bak’tun, we do know that the end of each bak’tun was considered a time of great change. Reviewing ancient Maya history provides a general corroboration of that notion,” Associate Professor of Philosophy Laura Barnhart said.

While it is uncertain that 2012 AD will mark the reset of the long count cycle, it is most certainly the beginning of the 13th bak’tun. The ancient Maya would have considered it a time of great change. If every bak’tun was a time of great change, then the 13th turn must have held special significance, perhaps the beginning of a new era in world history. Time will tell.

Graphic by Keyla Sosa

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