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| Have a nice day! |
Seriously. The Mayan Calendar was based on a cyclical count. The longest cycle was 1,872,000 days (or 5125.36 years). That cycle ends today. Now this wasn't in the day when you could walk down to Kinkos and print out 15 million copies of the 5125 year calendar to distribute to all of your Mayan friends. No, indeed. The ancient Mayan calendars we have on record are carved in stone! Think about that. I'll write it again in all-caps for effect. CARVED IN STONE! On the sides of temples. On walls in palaces. You get the picture? Not a cheap undertaking by any means.
Documenting the next Baktun calendar would have required an enormous budget from the Mayan King. A project including armies of stone masons, stone, new buildings to carve them into, iron tools for carving and time. Yes, TIME. Lots and lots of time. And, well... the Mayans thought they had at least a few hundred years left before they needed to start chiseling away in the rock and stone and create the next calendar. But, in that same time period, their armies of men and resources were needed to fight the Spanish. A fight they eventually lost and which subsequently left them adopting (or being forced to adopt) their conqueror's religion and therein, their calendar.
When your peoples are conquered and enslaved your culture typically takes an historical hit with regard to accounting and record-keeping. The fact that no new Baktun or Long Count Calendar was ever created is far from being proof that the world will end today. Imagine if nobody produced the new 2013 Victoria's Secret, Sports Illustrated, Hot Fireman, Warm Puppies or Cute Cats calendars this year. What a panic! No 2013 calendar? Must be the end of the world! Not likely.
It's 9:00 AM here as I write. In 15 hours we'll know for sure. Have a nice day!
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