Mayan doomsday prophecy debunked

A Peruvian shaman performs a ritual at a beach to prevent the end of the world, in Lima Dec 20, 2012. Shamans performed several rituals to calm believers and ward off the end of the world predictions. At sunrise on Friday, an era closes in the Maya Long Count calendar, an event that has been likened by different groups to the end of days, the start of a new, more spiritual age. [Photo/Agencies]

MEXICO CITY - Mankind's penchant for envisioning catastrophes, coupled with a misinterpretation of the Mayan calendar, has given rise to the prevalent rumors that doomsday nears, a researcher at Mexico's Space Agency said Thursday.

In an interview with Xinhua, Amanda Gomez said predictions for the world's end have existed throughout human history.

"The same thing happened when the year 2000 was about to begin and people thought the world was going to end, and in the 1900s some people had even committed suicide. There are always people who imagine a catastrophic outcome," she said.

The end was more about personal matter, she said. "Each person faces the end of time at the time of his or her death, that's when time ends."

The doomsday prophecy, Gomez said, was born out of the wrong interpretation of Mayan time concept, which assumes an infinite extension of the past and the future in a cyclic manner.

"Mayans had a very interesting knowledge of time and they divided it into days, weeks, months and cycles," she said.

Mayan 5,125-year Long Count calendar, the longest one the Mayas used, closed on December 21, which actually marks the start of another cycle rather than the end of the world, she said.

"According to the Mayan concept, we rather begin a new cycle, a new year, a new era. Scientifically, nothing changes," the researcher said.

The doomsday prophecy has been overwhelmingly discussed in the media, but scientifically there is no evidence that changes will occur on a specific day.

The Mayan concept of time, moreover, is similar to the Chinese or Jewish, said Gomez, only "Mayans measured it in (periods of) 5,128 years, which is the time it takes for the cycles of time to become aligned."

Asked about recent natural phenomena affecting planet Earth, Gomez said the changes that have taken place cannot be taken as evidence of the end of the world.

"There have always been changes. Since the universe was formed there have been explosions, rivers, volcanoes, etc. There are changes because the universe is alive and these have occurred since the Paleolithic era," she added.

Gomez said scientists could be alarmed by an approaching meteor, but that type of incident would have been detected 50 years ago.

"There are meteors that are being monitored and we know they are going to pass thousands of kilometers from the Earth, we know astronomical objects are always floating around our planet, but none of them are dangerous for the Earth," she said.

The Mayan calendar cycle ending in December, known in Mayan as 13 Baktun, began in the year 3114 B.C.

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