"It's true that the so-called long-count calendar—which spans roughly 5,125 years starting in 3114 B.C.—reaches the end of a cycle on December 21, 2012.
That day brings to a close the 13th Bak'tun, an almost 400-year period in the Maya long-count calendar.
"We, of course, know that really means a hundred thousand [miles] and not zero," said William Saturno, an expert on Maya archaeology at Boston University.
"So, is [the end of Bak'tun 13] a large period ending? Yes. Did the Maya like period endings? Yes," Saturno said.
"Would this have been a period ending they thought was wicked cool? You bet. The biggest period endings they experience are Bak'tun endings."
But "was it predicted to be the end the world? No. That's just us."
Instead, for the Maya, the end of the long count represents the end of an old cycle and the beginning of a new one, according to Emiliano Gallaga Murrieta, the Chiapas state division director of Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History.
Written references to the end of Bak'tun 13 are few. In fact, most Maya scholars cite only one: a stone tablet on Monument 6 at the Tortuguero archaeological site in Mexico's Tabasco state. This 1996 analysis was picked up "on many New Age websites, associated forum discussions, and even a few book chapters" as evidence that the Maya calendar had predicted the end of the world, according to Stuart.
Houston and Stuart, however, independently revisited the glyphs recently and concluded that the inscription may actually contain no prophetic statements about 2012 at all.
Rather, the mention of the end of Bak'tun 13 is likely a forward-looking statement that refers back to the main subject of the inscription, which is the dedication of Monument 6." NationalGeographic
Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man
cometh.
Matthew 25:13