Apocalypse later

There is stronger consensus among Mayanists, the scholars who study the ancient culture and its hieroglyphic records. They acknowledge that there’s a Maya inscription on a stone slab from one archaeological site saying that Dec. 21 (or 22), 2012, will be the end of a period in the calendar. That’s it. Oh, and the date falls on the solstice. Neat! Meanwhile, thousands of other sites that might allow us to understand this ancient culture have yet to be studied.

Behind the bogus prophecy, however, is an enormously advanced civilization whose complex worldview and timekeeping methods are just starting to be revealed. In a new book, “The Order of Days” (Harmony), Mayanist David Stuart sets out to debunk what he calls “this constellation of ideas about the Maya as these off-the-wall, even alien people.” As Stuart said, “Most people who are not specialists hear very strange things about the Maya that are very different from what scholars and academics or students hear … .That disconnect fascinated me, and still does.”

Stuart, who previously taught at Harvard, now directs the Mesoamerica Center at the University of Texas at Austin. He spoke to Ideas during a recent visit to Boston.

IDEAS: What’s the 2012 date about?

STUART: There is a reference in one ancient Maya text to the date Dec. 21, 2012, if our calendar calculations are correct. They called it the end of the 13th bak’tun. There’s been a lot of discussion and debate about what this tablet actually says … .My thinking has changed a little bit even since writing the book. I said there are many ambiguities and we can’t tell for certain what the tablet is saying. The thing that I now think - not everybody agrees with me - is there’s no description or prediction or prophecy of what 2012 means to the ancient Maya in this text. That’s not why they were referencing this date. They were projecting forward to an important anniversary of something happening in contemporary times … it’s really not about saying that the world will be transforming or ending.