Millions,
The Mayan calendar ends on December 21, 2012. Does this mean this is when they thought the world would end? Or, rather, just when they felt like stopping their incredibly accurate calendar?
It is just the end of a cycle. Granted, it will be the end of a very, very long cycle (5,125 years).
Then a new cycle will begin.
Oh.
Well.
Ummm…
I need to go to the bank and cancel that hefty, no interest till 2013 loan I just took out.
Note that the end of Maya cycles are associated with cataclystic events like fire, floods, etc.
Things that may close the bank.
Not exactly. There is a cottage industry of people who see terrible doom in the Mayan calendar, just as there are people who see terrible doom in the book of Revelation. There is no evidence from the Mayans that they expected anything more than a completion of one cycle and initiation of another.
It’s the beginning of the Sixth World. Magic will reappear, the Corporations will take over, and a dragon will become President of the United States.
It’s all in the glyphs, man!
There are also people who think something really super-great is going to happen on that date. New-Agey folks and Robert Anton Wilson both seem intrigued by it.
Ok, I’ll revise.
IIRC, the end of the last cycle was marked by cataclysms.
And, on a side note, the people and their civilization are the Maya. “Mayan” is/was their language.
Slightly off-topic snarky remark:
You mean the Mayans were 12 years off in their calculations? :o
Nah. But FASA was… 
If the number given by Doug Bowe is accurate, the last cycle was over five millennia ago in a culture that didn’t leave us much ancient writing. I doubt very much that even vaguely accurate records exist from that time.
On the other hand, much of the world gets fire, floods, and/or famine EVERY year, so I suppose it’s a pretty safe prediction.
Well 2012 is the end of a 100-year cycle, but the actual end of the current long count won’t be until the mid 4000s. See, in Mayan inscriptions it’s common practice to cut long calender numbers off at five digits for the sake of brevity, when in fact many (such as the actual end of the current long count) are actually between twelve and thirteen digits long. Inscriptions from Palenque suggest that though 2012 is the end of a Baktun, a 400-year period (and as such is significant), the current age won’t and and usher in the next age until October 13, 4772, in the Mayan system. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_calendar for a much more detailed explanation)
I remember a few years ago someone at work mentioning something about a pole shift and the end of the Mayan calendar. Then I heard a story on the news recently about how the north pole is drifting towards Russia… :eek:
The magnetic field of the Earth has been known for long to shift - according to Wiki, the magnetic north pole moves at a rate of about 41 kilometres (about 25 miles) per year. The magnetic poles have been located at quite different places on the surface of the Earth throughout the planet’s history, and it’s not indicating the end of the world.
(This is for the magnetic pole; the geographic poles will, of course, stay where they are.)
I second TimeWinder: It’s very unlikely that we know in detail which events took place the day the last cycle ended back in the fourth millennium BC. That’s a time when neither the Great Pyramid nor Stonehenge existed.
If you get a good compass, it’ll have a small adjustment screw where you can set declination. This is to account for the wandering magnetic pole.
It’s been in Canadian territory for some time. I just hope when it comes back from Russia, they haven’t stuck vodka labels all over it. Those are a bitch to clean off.