The Mayan Apocalypse (7 page)

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Authors: Mark Hitchcock

BOOK: The Mayan Apocalypse
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O
kay, since we're going to be working together, fill me in on this whole Mayan apocalypse thing.”

Lisa glanced over her shoulder at the trailing Garrett. “From your comment about Mayan gods, I assumed you were up to speed on all this.” She worked the bullpen area, sidestepping desks. There was work room for twice the reporters and web-ninjas than actually worked for the
Christian Herald
, but the economy being what it was and no real way to charge for subscriptions, the small nonprofit had to work on a shoestring.

“Well, I know a few things that I picked up in world history classes, but I don't know much about the end-of-the-world stuff— well, except what I see on television. There's a lot of that, but it all seems contradictory.”

“That's because it is.” Lisa stopped at her desk, set down her writing pad, and grabbed her laptop. “Since we have to work together, I guess I should fill your newbie brain with facts.”

Garrett's shoulders dipped an inch. It was enough for Lisa to notice.

“Sorry, kid, that came out harsher than I meant.” She gave him a long look and then forced a smile. “You know how the movies show star reporters as aloof, antisocial, and loners?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, that's me—except the antisocial part. I'm usually easy to get along with.”

“Unless someone gets in your way.”

Her smile dipped. “Your uncle tell you that?”

“Yes…I mean, he said something similar. I wasn't trying to be rude. I tend to repeat what I hear.”

“You need to break that habit, right now. Clear?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“And if you call me ‘ma'am' again, I'm going to have to hurt you.”

“Okay, but what should I call you?”

“I'm fine with
amazing
, but if that's too much of a stretch, you can call me
Lisa
, like everyone else.”

“You mean not everyone calls you
amazing
?”

“Now you see how quickly we've come back to my need to hurt you?” She smiled. “You'll get used to my sense of humor. Probably. Follow me.”

“Where?”

“The library.”

Lisa moved to the back of the office space and opened the door to a long, narrow room with a narrow conference table that had so many scars it looked as if it had served as an aircraft runway. Scars and stains gave it character.

Along the walls were rows of out-of-date encyclopedias, stacks of magazines, and the latest editions of major newspapers. The library was the most useless room in the office complex. Almost everything a reporter needed could be and was found on the Internet. The room existed only because of Truffaut's allegiance to the old way of doing business. To Lisa, her boss was a paradox. He led an organization that distributed news digitally, but his heart still pumped ink. These days, the library served as a place to heat a sack lunch or to slip away from the rattle of computer keyboards, phone conversations, and chit-chat.

“Take a seat.” Lisa pointed at a rickety, dining-room-style chair near the head of the table. She pulled back a chair, sat, and set her laptop on the table. A few moments later, the laptop was humming. “Okay, I'm going to do a brain dump, so listen fast.”

“I'm all ears.”

Lisa resisted the urge to make a joke. “Talk of end times is not new. It's part of the Christian doctrine. There is an entire branch of theology devoted to eschatology—the study of Christ's return and end times. As you probably know, there's a fair amount to debate about the details, but most Bible-based churches agree that Jesus will bodily return.”

“I'm familiar with the concept.” Garrett leaned back.

“I assumed you were. Christians are not the only ones to believe the world will someday end. People share a collective sense that the world is getting near closing time. Apocalyptic thinking is everywhere. Especially now. According to the Pew Research Foundation, about one in five Americans believe that Christ will return in the current generation. A
US News & World Report
poll revealed sixty percent of all Americans—from all faith backgrounds—believe the world will end eventually.”

“Sixty percent?”

“Yup. About twenty percent say Earth's life expectancy is just a couple of decades, and people are getting pretty nervous about it. December 21, 2012 is less than a year and a half away.”

“And the closer we get to that date—”

“The flakier things are going to get. Already we've seen the rise of cult groups and crazies. More and more people are predicting that December 21, 2012, is the apocalypse deadline—history's final day. The stroke of midnight. The galactic tipping point. The astronomical grand finale.”

“Okay, okay, I got it.” Garrett leaned forward and tried to peer at Lisa's computer screen. “What makes that date so special? I know that December 21, 2012, can be written 12-21-12. Is it some kinda code?”

“Several people have made a big deal of that, but it's silly. We work on the Gregorian calendar, a system developed by Pope Gregory XIII. That's a long time after the ancient Mayans.”

“So that part is just an interesting coincidence?”

Lisa nodded. “December 21, 2012, marks the end of the five-thousand-year cycle by the Mayan Long Count calendar. According to meticulous Mayan calculations, the world as we know it will reach its expiration date. They're not the only ones to say this. The ancient Aztec calendar corroborates the Mayan date.” She paused. “Shouldn't you be taking notes?”

Garrett grinned and tapped his forehead. “Eidetic memory.”

“You have a photographic memory?”

His grin spread. “That I do. Want me to prove it?”

“No.”

He seemed disappointed. “Okay.”

“Let's get through this first.” Lisa took a breath. “The origins of the Mayans is a mystery. Some believe the Mayan lineage stretches back two thousand years. No one can be sure about much of anything, but there are some things we do know. The Mayans were not alone in ancient Mesoamerica. The Toltecs, who lived about five hundred miles to the west of central Mexico, spoke a different language but shared many of the Mayan beliefs about time, nature, and cosmology. The Toltecs arrived late on the scene, emerging to power in about
A.D.
900. There were also the Olmecs, who were the first in the region to establish a major civilization. Their cultural influences peaked between 1500 and 600
B.C.
Other Mayan neighbors were the Zapotecs and Aztecs.

“Mayan civilization grew until the population numbered five to fourteen million. That was around
A.D.
800, but then the real mystery begins. One hundred years later, the population had diminished by eighty to ninety percent. No one knows why, but there is no shortage of theories: social or political upheaval, environmental breakdown leading to famine, or even sudden climate change. Others suggest a deadly plague.”

“Sounds logical. The plague, I mean.”

Lisa nodded slowly. “It seems so, but no vast gravesites indicating the sudden death of large numbers of people have been found. Perhaps several catastrophes took them out.” Lisa let her mind drift
for a moment as she thought of the strange disappearance of millions of people.

“You okay?” Garrett looked puzzled.

“Sorry. Just thinking. Are you sure you shouldn't be taking notes?”

Garrett straightened and closed his eyes. “Mayan civilization grew until the population numbered five to fourteen million. That was around
A.D.
800, but then the real mystery begins—”

“Okay, okay, you win. No need to repeat everything I said.”

“Sorry. I like to show off.”

Lisa pursed her lips. “I see that.” She cleared her throat and glanced at the notes she had been accumulating over the last few weeks. “We may never know why they disappeared so quickly, but here's one thing we do know: They left behind a remarkable legacy— and a bloody one.”

“I think I know the bloody part: They performed human sacrifice and would cut the hearts out of their victims.”

“Correct. There's evidence that they would drop the bodies in a reservoir they used for their drinking water, thereby contaminating it. It's been suggested that macabre indiscretion may have been the cause of the Mayan demise.”

Garrett squirmed. “Sick.”

“Human sacrifice, an annual ballgame in which the losing team was killed, and other practices can make a person think the Mayans were crude and barbaric. But they weren't. Well, not completely. They proved themselves to be master builders and keen observers of the sky and time. They were sky-watching timekeepers.”

Lisa tapped a key on her computer and read her notes. “The Mayans weren't just interested in time, they were
obsessed
with it. The Mayan calendar keepers charted the cycle of the moon with painstaking accuracy. They did the same for the sun and Venus. Their uncanny accuracy could not be duplicated until modern times.”

“How accurate is accurate?” Garrett was showing real interest.

“Without using telescopes, Mayan astronomers determined the
length of a lunar month to be 29.53020 days, within thirty-four seconds of the current value. That was two thousand years ago.”

Garrett looked stunned. “They got it down to within thirty-four seconds? That seems impossible.”

“You're right. It does seem impossible, but it is still true. They did the same with the solar year. By their calculation, a year was 365.2450 days. Modern science sets the length of a year at 365.2425. And the Mayan astronomers did all of this without the help of telescopes, computers, or calculators. And if you think that's impressive, listen to this: They didn't just keep track of time for a few years, or even a few decades. They kept track of time for millennia.”

“How many millennia?”

“Just twenty-six thousand years.”

“Oh, is that all?”

“Here's the key: for the Mayans, time was holy. Time was reflected in events. To them, time formed history; not the other way around. We think of time as a string of hours or days. The Mayans saw it as part of a cosmic plan. A calendar was not something to jot down a business meeting on; it was the schematic of the past and the future. That's why they spent so much time and precision in making their calendars. The Mayan time codes are very elaborate and precise.”

Garrett rose and paced the room for a few moments. “So where we see time as a series of events on a time line, they saw it as something bigger. Is that right?”

“Yes. They saw time, not as a line, but as series of repeating cycles. We measure the passing of days; they measured cycles.”

“And they did this on one calendar?” He returned to his seat, his brow knitted in thought.

“No, newbie, the Mayans had more than one calendar. They had about twenty different calendars, but they relied upon three main time-tracking calendars. These three calendars are most relevant to the 2012 date. The solar calendar, known as the
Haab'
—sometimes called the ‘Vague Year'—was based on the celestial cycle. It contains
365 days split into eighteen months of twenty days, each with a five-day period or ‘month' left over. They considered that time as very unlucky.”

Garrett asked, “Why a twenty-day month? That seems odd.”

“To the Mayans, the number twenty was sacred because humans have twenty digits.”

“Oh. I guess that makes sense.”

“They'll be happy that you approve.” Lisa softened the words with a slight smile. “The second calendar is called the
Tzolk'in
.” She spelled it aloud. “It was a ceremonial and sacred calendar related to Venus. It contained 260 days known as the ‘sacred cycle.' It's believed to be based on the nine-month period of human gestation. It was the oldest and most widely used calendar in Mesoamerica.”

Lisa didn't wait for Garrett to comment. She plowed forward. “The third Mayan measure of time is known as the Long Count calendar. This is the biggie. It was used to document the ever-repeating age cycles of the world. They divided this calendar into five units that extended forward and backward from the mythical creation of the Mayans, which they believed was August 11, 3114
B.C.
That day is represented on the Mayan Long Count calendar as 0.0.0.0.1—Day One. The fifth cycle is supposed to end on December 21, 2012, or 13.0.0.0.0—Day Last. The day after will be 0.0.0.0.1. It all starts over, but many believe that day will never come—at least not for humans. According to the Mayans, all five great cycles end in destruction. The year 2012 is the year the fifth great cycle is supposed to end.”

“And that's where the end of the world comes in?” Garrett asked.

“That's it. I hope you don't have plans for that day.”

“Funny. How did they come up with their dates? It can't be arbitrary.”

“It wasn't arbitrary. The Long Count calendar is based on the procession of the equinox.”

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