Mayan new era — or end of world — about to start
Tucked away in thick forest, an exquisite site of Mayan ruins began hosting winter solstice ceremonies on Thursday as the region’s indigenous people marked the end of an era.
Or perhaps the end of the world, depending on your point of view.
At the site, there were no signs that doomsday — the stark scenario conjured by proponents of one minority reading of the ancient Mayan calendar that underlies the festivities — was imminent.
At sunset, Guatemalan President Otto Perez was to kick off a long night of Mayan dance and other rituals, lasting until dawn, when Mayan natives will greet the rising sun on December 21, 2012 — a date feared by some.
Around the world, superstitious people have fretted over a quixotic, not to say apocalyptic, interpretation of the calendar — taking refuge in mountains or bunkers, with some stockpiling guns and survival rations.
In the United States, still in shock after a massacre at an elementary school, officials in one county of the midwestern state of Michigan sent thousands of students home early for the Christmas break.
The Lapeer County district said “rumors connected to the Maya calendar that predicted end of the world” had distracted students and teachers, even though they have been “thoroughly investigated and determined to be false.”
Still, classes were cancelled Thursday and Friday.
The mystery stems from a carved stone found in Tortuguero, a Mayan site in Mexico. The relief contains a cryptic allusion to something really big happening on Friday.
However, most experts interpret the calendar to mean December 21, 2012 is simply the end a 5,200-year era for the Maya and the start of another.