Because the prophecies of the end of the world were based on incorrect readings of the ancient Mayan calendar, the world did not end in 2012. The complicated system of cycles that made up the Mayan calendar monitored the motions of the sun, moon, and planets. The calendar foretold the conclusion of a cycle and the start of a new one rather than the end of the world.
is a system of calendars that was used throughout pre-Columbian Mesoamerica as well as in many modern communities in the Guatemalan highlands, Veracruz, Oaxaca, and Chiapas, Mexico. The calendar is composed of a variety of counts or cycles of different durations. Researchers call to the 260-day period as the Tzolkin, or Tzolk'in.
a 365-day ambiguous solar year, were merged to create the Calendar Round, a synchronised cycle lasting 52 Haab. The scheduling of rituals, taxation, and the documentation of historical events were all done using this cycle.
The Mayan connection "was a misunderstanding from the very beginning," says Dr. John Carlson, director of the Center for Archaeoastronomy. There were no Maya predictions that the world would end on December 21, 2012, and the Maya calendar did not end on that day.
