What is the Mayan Calander, Really?

It is a calender with three cycles withing it. One is a daily calendar that was more accurate then what Europe was using before the 1700s. The second was primarily religious and the third is the "Long Count" that's making all the news.

Remember 2000 when the Y2K bug was supposed to destroy civilization? You get the picture of the "Long Count" issue.

The "It's 2012 and we're all gonna die" was started by and artist in the 1970s. he noted the cycle ending (just as our year 'ends" next Sunday) and make some new age h stuff about it. That was the start.

As for the death and destruction, remember that such things sell books, movies and stuff on the Discovery channel. The single source for the death and destruction is a badly eroded carving. It mentions the end of the long count and ..... sorry that's all that's left of the message. What supposedly will happen isn't said.

However that's not the only prediction we know about:

"Maya inscriptions...reference future predicted events or commemorations that would occur on dates that lie beyond 2012 ... Most of these are in the form of "distance dates" where some Long Count date is given.

For example, on the west panel at the Temple of Inscriptions in Palenque, a section of the text projects into the future to the 80th Calendar Round (CR) 'anniversary' of the famous Palenque ruler ...which lies over 4,000 years in the future from Pakal's time—13 October 4772"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesoamerican_Long_Cou...

While many clam the calendar "ends." the date isn't 2012.

"this date lies some 41,341,049,999,999,999,999,999,994,879 years in the future, or 3 quintillion times the scientifically accepted age of the universe."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_doomsday_predict...

What's it all about? Hype and money making. This time next year do you think any of the people predicting death and destruction will fess up and say "Dude, I was just so wrong. My Bad!"

The media loves to bend and twist news. The Mayan calendar ends December of 2012. That's it. There cycle has ended and need to come up with a new calendar. Its just a cycle. Scientists belive something will happen that day bcuz the sun goes through a weird period every few thousand years but nothing to cause an apocalypse

The Mayan calendar was a customized calendar created by a guy named Jose at Shutterfly.com (or was it Snapfish, I can't remember). Unfortunately, since those websites didn't exist in 1,000 BC, they never received their order until it was discovered in the 21st century.

It was a calendar meant to be used for planting at the right time and showing when changes in the rhythm of these patterns naturally change.They did not continue the calender for ever because it repeats itself.

I think you just answered your own question.