The End of the World – Time to Panic?

Ok. We might indeed be screwed.  Or not.

Archaelogists at Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History have announced that a second reference the end of the world in 2012 exists on a carved fragment. Until now, we’ve known of only one reference to the 2012 date in Mayan glyphs. The Tortuguero tablet from Tabasco.

Of course, neither tablet refers to the end of the world or the apocolypse nor really anything of the sort. But who cares? Mass hysteria sells books – and movies. Bolon Yokte will get you!

This new Comalcalco inscription (also in Tabasco) is set on the carved front of a brick (BTW, bricks were rarely used in the construction of Mayan temples) and it may not, in fact, refer to the same date as the Tortuguero tablet.

The brick date is in fact the end of the thirteenth Baktun (394-year periods) but it is part of a “calendar round” cycle that runs on repeat every 52 years – so it is not exactly the same as the Tortuguero tablet.  It also might not even refer to a future date but rather the date of something that happened a long time ago.