Maya Civilization

What Did the Maya 2012 Prophecy Actually Say?

The “Maya 2012 prophecy” is the popular belief that the Maya calendar predicted the end of the world on 21 December 2012, the date on which the thirteenth baktun of the Long Count is widely held to have completed. The belief is, in its modern New Age form, a Western construction of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries; the contemporary academic consensus, supported by every major Maya epigrapher and by modern Maya organizations across Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and Honduras, is that the Classic-period Maya did not predict an end of the world at the 13-baktun completion, and that the baktun-13 rollover was treated as the close of a long count cycle, comparable to the rollover of an odometer.

This page traces the actual record: the Long Count base date 4 Ajaw 8 Kumk’u at 13.0.0.0.0, the Tortuguero Monument 6 inscription that explicitly mentions the 13-baktun completion, the colonial-era Books of Chilam Balam that treat the 13-baktun cycle as a historical period rather than a prophetic one, the rise of the New Age “2012” phenomenon in the 1970s–2000s, and the response of modern Maya communities and scholars to the popular appropriation of their calendar.

The 13-baktun completion and the calendar

The Long Count is a strictly cumulative day-count from the base date 4 Ajaw 8 Kumk’u, equivalent in the Goodman-Martinez-Thompson (GMT) correlation to 11 or 13 August 3114 BCE. The baktun is the largest standard unit of the Long Count: 144,000 days, or 394.3 solar years. The thirteenth baktun is, in this reckoning, the day on which the count reaches 1,872,000 days since the creation. Under the GMT correlation, that day is 21 December 2012; under the Spinden correlation, it falls roughly 260 days earlier, in mid-December.

The 13-baktun completion is, in Maya calendrical mathematics, a moment of cycle completion. The day 13.0.0.0.0 falls on the Calendar Round position 4 Ajaw 8 Kumk’u, exactly the same position as the base date 0.0.0.0.0. The count is, in other words, about to return to its starting position, and a new 13-baktun cycle would have begun. The 13-baktun cycle is the largest natural cycle of the Long Count, and its completion is the largest “rollover” event in the system.

The Tortuguero Monument 6 inscription

The single most important contemporaneous text on the 13-baktun completion is Tortuguero Monument 6, a Late Classic inscription from the site of Tortuguero in the Usumacinta region. The inscription, dated to 10.5.3.3.5 8 Ajaw 13 Keh (a Long Count position equivalent to AD 690 in the GMT correlation), records a katun-ending or a baktun-distance reference that explicitly mentions the 13-baktun completion.

The relevant passage of the inscription is the phrase u bolon yookte (sometimes read as u-bolon-y-ookte), translated variously as “the nine supports will be installed,” “the legitimate gods will descend,” or “the nine feet will be set.” The phrase is fragmentary, and the surrounding context is damaged, but the inscription is widely read as a reference to a future event tied to the 13-baktun completion.

The reading of bolon yookte is contested. Some scholars, including David Stuart and Stephen Houston, read the term as a deity name or as a reference to the bolon ti’ k’uh, the “nine road of the gods” of Xibalba. Others, including Markus Eberl, have argued that the phrase is too fragmentary to support a specific translation. The phrase is, however, the only contemporaneous text that explicitly mentions the 13-baktun completion, and it has been the focus of the 2012 debate.

The Tortuguero Monument 6 inscription is also significant for what it does not say. The text does not predict an end of the world, does not mention catastrophe, and does not describe any destruction. The phrase u bolon yookte is ambiguous, but the absence of apocalyptic language is unambiguous. The 13-baktun completion is treated as a future event of ritual significance, comparable to other Long Count positions, and the inscription is consistent with the broader pattern of Maya calendrical inscriptions.

The Books of Chilam Balam

The colonial-era Books of Chilam Balam, written in Yukatek Maya with Spanish orthography, are a corpus of texts from the Yucatan Peninsula dating from the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The Books of Chilam Balam record a series of katun prophecies attributed to the prophet Chilam Balam of Maní, with each katun of the 13-katun cycle given a name and a character.

The Books of Chilam Balam mention the 13-baktun completion in several passages. The most explicit is the Katun 4 Ajaw prophecy, which describes the “katun of battles” and refers to the end of a baktun cycle. The text does not, however, predict the end of the world; it describes a time of warfare, drought, and social upheaval, consistent with the colonial-era experience of the Yukatek communities in the wake of the Spanish conquest. The 13-baktun completion is read as a period in the colonial past, not as a future apocalyptic event.

The Books of Chilam Balam also include the K’atun 13 Ajaw prophecy, which describes the “katun of the book” and the restoration of the Maya ritual. The 13-baktun completion is, in this reading, a time of cultural renewal, not a time of cosmic destruction.

The New Age “2012” phenomenon

The modern “2012” phenomenon is a Western New Age construction that emerged in the 1970s and grew rapidly in the 1990s and 2000s. The phenomenon is most often traced to the work of José Argüelles, whose 1987 book The Mayan Factor argued that the 13-baktun completion marked a shift in cosmic consciousness and the beginning of a new “galactic alignment” between the sun and the galactic center. Argüelles’ reading was based on a creative interpretation of the Long Count, the Tzolkin, and the Haab’, and it was not based on any contemporaneous Maya text.

The “2012” phenomenon was amplified by the work of Frank Waters, Carlos Barrios, John Major Jenkins, and Daniel Pinchbeck, all of whom contributed to a popular literature that tied the 13-baktun completion to prophecies of catastrophe, transformation, or ascension. The phenomenon was further amplified by the 2009 film 2012, which depicted a Hollywood-style apocalypse tied to the 13-baktun completion, and by a flood of books, websites, and documentaries that presented a mix of pseudo-archaeological claims, misreadings of the Long Count, and New Age philosophy.

The popular literature often cited the Tortuguero Monument 6 inscription as evidence of a Maya prediction of the end of the world. The actual text, as we have seen, is fragmentary, ambiguous, and does not predict catastrophe. The popular reading was, in other words, a misreading of the inscription and a misapplication of the Long Count.

The response of modern Maya communities

Modern Maya communities, scholars, and organizations have been unanimous in rejecting the “2012” end-of-the-world interpretation. The Acuerdo para el Desarrollo Económico y Social de los Pueblos Maya (ADEQ), the Academia de las Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala, the Oxlajuj Ajpop (a council of highland Maya daykeepers), and the National Indigenous Council of Mexico have all issued statements affirming that the 13-baktun completion is a moment of cycle renewal, not a moment of cosmic destruction.

The highland daykeepers, the aj q’ij, have emphasized that the 13-baktun completion is a time of ritual renewal, comparable to the 0 Pop day of the Haab’ and the 1 Ajaw day of the Tzolkin. The 0 Pop day is a moment of ritual installation, the bringing-in of the new fire; the 1 Ajaw day is a moment of royal accession; the 13-baktun completion is a moment of cosmic renewal, the installation of a new 13-baktun cycle. The 13-baktun completion is, in other words, a “new year” of the Long Count, not an “end of the world.”

The modern Maya response to the “2012” phenomenon is documented in the work of scholars such as David Stuart, Stephen Houston, Markus Eberl, Wendy Call, and Alessandro Fornazzari. The response has been amplified by Maya-led organizations that have used the 2012 moment to advocate for indigenous rights, land restitution, and the recognition of the modern Maya heritage.

The galactic alignment argument

One of the most persistent elements of the “2012” phenomenon is the “galactic alignment” argument: the claim that the 13-baktun completion coincided with an alignment between the sun and the galactic center (the dense star cloud in Sagittarius), and that this alignment marked a shift in cosmic consciousness. The galactic alignment is a real astronomical event, in the sense that the sun’s position in the sky is in the direction of the galactic center on 21 December, but the alignment is approximate (the sun is some 6° from the galactic center), it is not a sharp event, and it is not relevant to the Long Count.

The Long Count is a day-count, not an astronomical alignment, and the Maya daykeepers were not known to have tracked the galactic center. The galactic alignment argument is a modern New Age interpretation that has no basis in the contemporaneous Maya record. The argument is sometimes traced to the work of John Major Jenkins, whose 1998 book Maya Cosmogenesis 2012 popularized the idea, but the argument is rejected by the academic Maya community.

The baktun-13 completion in the modern calendar

In the highland communities of Guatemala, the 13-baktun completion is celebrated as the Mayan New Year, a ritual and cultural festival. The Guatemalan government recognized the Mayan New Year in 2011, and the date is celebrated in the highland communities with ceremonies, ritual dances, and the consultation of the aj q’ij. The Mayan New Year is a moment of cultural pride, of Maya identity, and of the assertion of Maya languages and traditions in a multicultural state.

The 13-baktun completion is also celebrated in the Mexican states of Yucatan, Quintana Roo, Campeche, Chiapas, and Tabasco, where the modern Maya communities have organized public ceremonies and educational events. The 2012 moment was, in this respect, an opportunity for the modern Maya to assert their cultural heritage, to educate the public about the actual Long Count, and to push back against the apocalyptic misreadings of the calendar.

The baktun cycle as a historical period

The baktun cycle is, in the Long Count, a 144,000-day period. The 13-baktun cycle is, in turn, a 1,872,000-day period. The 13-baktun cycle is the largest natural cycle of the Long Count, and the 13-baktun completion is the largest “rollover” event in the system. The Classic-period Maya did not, however, treat the 13-baktun cycle as a unique or final event; the Long Count is open-ended, and a new 13-baktun cycle would have begun at 13.0.0.0.0.

The colonial-era Books of Chilam Balam read the baktun cycle as a historical period, with the 13-baktun cycle being the period from the creation to the present. The 13-baktun completion is, in this reading, the end of a historical period, not the end of the world. The 13-baktun completion is a moment to take stock of the past and to prepare for the future, not a moment of cosmic destruction.

The modern popular press has played a significant role in the spread of the “2012” myth. The 2009 film 2012, the History Channel documentaries, the National Geographic specials, and the many books and websites that promoted the apocalyptic interpretation all contributed to a widespread popular belief in the end-of-the-world scenario. The press coverage was not based on the actual Maya record, but on the New Age literature that misread the Long Count.

The academic response has been measured. Scholars such as David Stuart, Stephen Houston, Markus Eberl, Anthony Aveni, and Prudence Rice have written extensively on the actual Maya record and have pushed back against the apocalyptic interpretations. The response has been effective in correcting the popular record, and the apocalyptic interpretations have largely faded from the public discourse since 2012.

The baktun-13 completion in the academic record

The academic record on the 13-baktun completion is clear. The Long Count is a day-count, the 13-baktun completion is a rollover event, the Tortuguero Monument 6 inscription is fragmentary, the Books of Chilam Balam are colonial-era, and the modern New Age literature is a Western construction. The contemporaneous Maya record does not support an end-of-the-world interpretation, and the academic consensus is that the 13-baktun completion was a ritual and calendrical event, not a cosmic catastrophe.

The 13-baktun completion is, in other words, a “new year” of the Long Count, comparable to the rollover of a numerical odometer. The day 13.0.0.0.0 is the end of one 13-baktun cycle and the beginning of the next. The day is a moment of cosmic renewal, of ritual installation, and of cultural celebration, not a moment of cosmic destruction.

Sources

  • Aveni, A. F. (2001). Skywatchers of Ancient Mexico. University of Texas Press. — link
  • Aveni, A. F. & Hartung, H. (1986). Maya city planning and the calendar. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 76 (1). — link
  • Edmonson, M. S. (1988). The Book of the Year: Middle American Calendar Systems. University of Utah Press. — link
  • Teeple, J. E. (1926). Maya Astronomy. Contributions to American Archaeology No. 2. Carnegie Institution of Washington. — link
  • Rice, P. M. (2007). Maya Calendar Origins: Monuments, Mythohistories, and the Materialization of Time. University of Texas Press. — link
  • Coe, M. D. (1993). The Maya (5th ed.). Thames & Hudson. — link