What is the big deal with the Mayan Calendar??

Question

I mean, is it an acutal document or rock carvings found in South America? Or is it just a myth that someone made up a couple years ago? I have never heard or seen any evidence of it, so why do people keep sporting it around on here in their answers like they actually know what they are talking about?

Answer 1

Counting systems used by the Maya and others in that part of the world included the ability to reckon very large numbers. They used that, in part, in keeping a very intricate calendar. That is, they could date events or name any day from a supposed creation day until far into the future. Although the so-called Maya Long Count sounds like it is linear and perhaps could end at some point in fact one cycle of existence/history/whatever is due to conclude in a few years time. This does not mean it will be the End Of Time. It is more similar to (though more significant than) our making a fuss over the new millennium in 2000.

Answer 2

I agree, people have given this wayyyy too much significance...

As for the facts behind why some people are scared:

The Mayan Calendar marks specific important dates by speaking of the "death of the sun" and its replacement with a different sun.
The death of the fourth sun, which was, according to their calendar, to bring darkness, coincided with the arrival and conquests of the Spanish.
The death of the fifth sun, which was in the last century, met up with the exact date of a complete lunar eclipse over Mexico City, which was built on the capital of the previous civilizations there.

The basis of the current stupidity is the fact that after the death of the sixth sun (2012), there are no more suns in their calendar.

Answer 3

I think the big deal is about the 2012 prophecy. But what most people don't realize is that there were more than one calender system .It is said somewhere that the Mayan & the Egyptian calenders started at the same time in the past.I wonder why little is known about the Mayan calender than what is already known. As the modern Julian calender is not even as exact as the Mayan calender.

Answer 4

They probably just want to get rich or something if i photo cropped some human like thing on Pluto and said there was life on Pluto who could prove me wrong if i came up with some weird saying how they can live there as far as anyone knows i could be write same thing here no one can turn back time and see whats right and wrong.

Answer 5

It's an actual artifact, but people are reading too much into it and giving it too much significance. If the Maya were so great at predicting things, they'd still be around today.