ArchaeoBlog

A blog post at BoingBoing:

In fact, the idea of a countdown to cataclysmic apocalypse is a Western, not Mayan idea, say some Mayans who are getting fed up with the hype. You can read more about their perspective in this AP article: “2012 Isn’t the End of the World, Mayans Insist.”

Another important thing to think about: The amount of money being raked in by woo-woo charlatans (and, now, big entertainment companies) who are all capitalizing off what amounts to willful misinterpretations of Mayan legends, traditions and science.

Not something I get all worked up about. I’m not so sure about “willful” misinterpretation since yer average Hollywood exec knows about as much about Maya cosmology as I do about Marilyn Monroe’s backside; that’s just ignorance (not in the pejorative sense) not maliciousness, I don’t think (“Don’t ascribe to malice what can more easily be attributed to incompetence” I always say). Similar to the whole Y2k debacle from a few years ago; nobody really thought much about when the actual turn of the millennium was (1/1/2001) nor the contortions the calendar has gone through over the past 2000 years nor the inherent uncertainty regarding precisely when the millennium actually began.

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