10 <strong>Fortid</strong> 1/12 Fagtidsskriftet til historiestudentene ved Universitetet i Oslo kommer ut re ganger i året. <strong>Fortid</strong> speiler bredden i det norske historiefaget og er en arena for nye stemmer, synspunkter og strømninger. I <strong>Fortid</strong> skriver studenter og etablerte forskere side om side. Bladet utgis re ganger i året. Vil du abonnere på <strong>Fortid</strong>? Send navn og adresse på e-post til redaksjonen@fortid.no eller på SMS til tlf: 45097168 Ordinærpris: 200,- Studenter: 160,-
«Much Ado About 2-0-1-2» Excerpts from a lecture delivered at Alfred University, 27 Oct 2008. Draft 6 April 2010. For The Colgate International. Printed with the author’s approval. antHony F. aveni, russeLL CoLgate distinguisHed university ProFessor oF astronoMy, antHroPoLogy, and native aMeriCan studies, CoLgate university When it comes to fabricating elaborate timekeeping systems the Maya reign supreme. They summed their days to 20-day months, their months to scores of years that grew to ever expanding time loops of scores of scores of years (they probably originated their base-20 system from counting on the fingers and toes in the days before written numeracy). The Maya carved their five digit («vigit» would be a more appropriate term) hierarchy of time’s multiples of 20 on monuments that proclaimed dynastic accomplishments – especially those that took place in periods ending in double or triple zeroes, like our decadal, centenary, or millennial years. Maya lords of number each carried a share of the burden of time, seeming to deposit the count at the feet of the viewer. They also wrote time’s numbers in their codices, or books of prophecy, each important date attended by a ritual to pay the debt to the gods for good health or a bountiful harvest. When all the vigits overturned, an era (or «creation») would end and a new one would take its place. Regardless of what the Maya script tells us about the nature of these multiple creations, some prophets of the modern world have seized upon the question of what will happen at the soon-to-arrive stroke of Maya midnight. They have created their own mythologies; but their newfound myths may tell us as much about ourselves as the ancient Maya. For example, take the cover of Lawrence Joseph’s book Apocalypse 2012. It advertises that its interior will tell why the 2012 event will be «more tumultuous, catastrophic, and quite possibly revelatory than any other year in human history». Nail biters beware…! «It’ll make you think twice about your retirement plans», reads another enthusiastic endorsement. 1 Geoff Stray is Y12’s encyclopedist. His ominous sounding website «Dire Gnosis» paves the fast På tema 11 On December 21 (or December 23), depending upon how you align their ancient calendar with ours, 2012, the odometer of Maya time known as the Long Count, will revert to zero and the cyclic count of 1,872,000 days (5128+ years) will begin anew. The current Maya era began on August 11 (or 13) 3114 BC. track to understanding 2012: «it takes the most significant and fascinating parts of the 2012 puzzle and packs them into a bite-size package that today’s busy people can digest in their lunch breaks.» 2 One latter day soothsayer, John Major Jenkins, proclaims that the starting date (the sun crosses the overhead position in southern Maya latitudes about Aug 12) and the ending date (Dec 21 corresponds to the winter solstice) of the current creation offer clues that Maya sages deliberately fixed the era to correspond to seminal astronomical events. Moreover, contends Jenkins, the winter solstice sun will cross the Milky Way’s equator at the position of the nuclear bulge in the vicinity of the constellations of Sagittarius and Scorpio, which mark the center of our Galaxy, about the year 2012 (1980–2016 is the liberally targeted window he quotes based on modern measurements). He insists that the Maya pegged the long count to this future sky event. 3 To accomplish such a feat the Maya would need to have known about the precession of the equinoxes, the slow gyration of the earth’s axis about the pole of the ecliptic, which is responsible for the 26,000 year cycle of the movement of the marking points of the four seasons about the constellations of the zodiac. But then, reasons Jenkins, any civilization as adept as the Maya at juggling huge chunks of time and creating harmonious astronomical prediction tables, such as we find in the Maya codices, surely would have been capable of reckoning cosmic cycles of extraordinary duration. In The End of Time: The Maya Mystery of 2012 (University Press of Colorado 2010) I deal with these claims from both the anthropological and astronomical perspectives. ➤
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