As discussed in the most recent issue of The End is Nigh, the buzz over 2012 is increasing with every passing day and shows no sign of abating.
However, there's moxed news for those expecting the world to come to an end on 21 December 2012 - it might not happen.
Simply put, the often-unchallenged idea is that because the Mayan calendar comes to an 'end' on this date it means they 'predicted' the end of the world. These amazing prophetic powers didn't *really* do them a lot of favours in the 15th and 16th Centuries, but never let logic get in the way of a good apocalyptic idea.
However, according to Fox News (we know, we know), a new study suggests that not only is the date wrong but that the real date for this 'end' may not be knowable at all!
A new critique, published as a chapter in the new textbook "Calendars and Years II: Astronomy and Time in the Ancient and Medieval World" (Oxbow Books, 2010), argues that the accepted conversions of dates from Mayan to the modern calendar may be off by as much as 50 or 100 years. That would throw the supposed and overhyped 2012 apocalypse off by decades and cast into doubt the dates of historical Mayan events.
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