By Joe Schartz

Trojan Tribune Staff

Photo Courtesy of frogview.com

   Maybe it looked like just another rock in the ground, or perhaps at a second glance it resembled the Ten Commandments. The Mexican highway construction workers were probably too focused on getting their job done to ponder over what the strange-looking symbols on the stone tablet might be.

   Actually, the stone tablet they had uncovered was far from an ordinary rock. It was a Mayan carving known today as Monument Six.

   The inscription on Monument Six, discovered in the 1960s, tells of a 2012 occurrence involving the Mayan deity Bolon Yokte, a mysterious god believed to represent both war and creation. A crack in the end of the stone makes the last glyphs on the tablet illegible, but archaeologist Guillermo Bernal of Mexico’s National Autonomous University believes them to be interpreted as, “He will descend from the sky.”

   Does that send chills up your spine?

   Monument Six is one of many pieces of Mayan culture that are generating pervasive fear among those waiting for a coming Armageddon. But the world has seen the predictions before, right? So why should people believe the 2012 predictions any more than previous scares sparked by fraudulent scientists and waved into flame by herds of blind sheep?

   In 1974, John Gribbin and Stephen Plagemann published the notorious novel, The Jupiter Effect. They predicted that an alignment of the planets on March 10, 1982 would result in a series of geological catastrophes, including a massive earthquake along the San Andreas Fault. The date came to pass, and the outlandish predictions never occurred.

   The turn of the century and a new millennium saw many terrified people hiding in their basements alongside nonperishable food rather than celebrating the New Year. The “Y2K” scare led many to believe the world’s computer systems would collapse, leaving the globe totally powerless and susceptible to destruction. Those who kept their heads are able to laugh about it, as the massive shut-down never happened.

   However bizarre these other end-of-the-world predictions may have been, the 2012 prediction has some substantial astronomical and archaeological basis behind it. The Mayan calendar progresses in 394-year periods known as “Baktuns.” Thirteen is a sacred number to the Mayans, and the last Baktun, the 13^th, ends near December 21, 2012.

   And that’s not all—on that same date, the sun will line up with our Milky Way galaxy during the Winter Solstice. This astronomical occurrence occurs just once every 25,800 years.

   Coincidences? Perhaps.

   But some scholars point to more evidence than Mayan artifacts to prove the 2012 theory. Nostradamus, the famous French visionary, claimed a prophet by some, wrote of many events leading to the end of the world.  If his writings are correctly interpreted by scholars and archaeologists, Nostradamus eerily predicted the reigns of Napoleon and Hitler. He wrote of three antichrists, Napoleon and Hitler perhaps being the first two, and some believe the third will come to power near 2012.

   However, the large majority of the academic, historical, and scientific communities have condemned these theories as pure hogwash. “They’re really super-duper trying to find anything astronomical they can to fit that date of 2012,” said astronomer Phil Plait.

   Only time can tell whether the 2012 predictions will result in as much fear and pandemonium as previous theories. It is also the only way we will find out if they are actually true.