Matthew Shelley

ANTH 439: 2012 and

the End of the World
Dr. Julia Smith
11 December, 2012
Final Exam

1: The calendar which is currently entering a new cyclic phase coinciding with the Gregorian

dates of either December 21st or 23rd, 2012, is referred to as the Maya Long Count calendar, a

separate method of calendar tracking utilized by those same people of the Yucatan penisnula in what

is modern day Mexico for roughly over a millenium. The primary surviving written form for early

to classic Maya revolved around the calendar, so as a result it takes on an amplified importance in

its study. The Long Count calendar is built around a base 13 system, as that number was considered

holy, or of particular note in their society. This is reflected similarly in the importance of the

number 7 in modern calendars and some apocalyptic thinking. The Long Count is based around the

count of Kins, or days. 18 Kins equals an Uinal, not unlike a Gregorian month. These are further

recorded into Tuns, or 360 Kins; Katuns, 7,200 Kins; and finally Baktuns, 144,000 Kins, just shy of

four centuries. It could be equated with the concepts of century as one hundred years or a

millenium as one thousand years. It is this final cycle form, the Baktun, which is preparing to

change over from 12 to 13, giving a new date of 13.0.0.0.0, the bold 13 and the importance the

Maya placed on the number 13 comprising the primary basis for the belief in the importance of the

date. This calendar was implemented from the beginning of creation, which was marked as 31st

August, 3114 BCE. However, the calendar itself has its first date in 36 BCE, and its final date in

910 CE, after which the calendar fell into disuse. This long count calendar is often confused with,

among others, the Calendar Round of Guatemala. The Calendar Round, despite being unrelated to

doomsday predictions later associated with the Maya Long Count, is often introduced as a sort of

Rosetta stone through which we can understand the Maya calendar forms. The Calendar Round

managed to survive the Colonial period, and thrives still today, giving us an intermediate form

between the Gregorian and the Long Count. Each of these overlapping calendars, as well as various
others used locally, utilized ideographic means of expression, the Calendar Round using a unique

counting format as well. This calendar is a combination of two other forms, the Tzolkin, a 260 day

calendar, and the Haab, a 365 day calendar with 18 months of 20 days. This calendar, rather than

using leap years or months, has a five day remaining period at the end, seen as an unlucky time.

From this continued calendar, the start date of 4 Ahau on the Tzolkin, and 8 Cumku on the Haab can

be determined. Due to overlap of the calendars during the colonial period, there are records of dates

and the ending of a katun, anchoring dates for each calendar together. While many calendars have

tended to promote cyclic patterns in thought, the Maya especially adhered to this concept of cycles,

endless cycles of repetition and new beginnings. Often these are based around natural events, but

more often they seem to be based around the actions or ascensions of kings and rulers, the ushering

of a dynasty, allowed its cyclic turn, to decline as its time fades. So too, each piece of their

understanding of time, the katuns, baktuns, kins, and all else and more could be given such

qualities, expected conditions that could be sensibly forecast if one had access to enough

observation, and the night sky is quite unrestricted. It is not entirely dissimilar to the Greek Zodiac.

The turning from the twelfth baktun to the thirteenth is a significance only due to the importance of

thirteen in their culture, not due to any prescribed warning, any forecast of doom, whether divinely

inspired or the work of alien invaders or cosmic rays or any other such inspiration beyond what

these people developed. If we could understand their history better, perhaps we could know what

comes next in their calendar, how many baktuns should we see pass? But they left no such

warning, and perhaps it is wrong to assume they did.

2. The various apocalyptic scenarios can be reasonably categorized into three typologies. Most

media expressions, novels, films, general pop media exposure, as well as those with belief and even

faith in will fit quite readily into one of the three subcategories of apocalyptic thinking without

terrible strain. The first sort could be dubbed Chaos Rising. In this, perhaps the simplest category,
the unreliable, hazardous environment, notably the flooding of the Tigris and Euphrates river which,

unlike the regular Nile, could come at any time, gave rise to nature being associated with Chaos.

The rivers flood dangerously, vicious animals stalked those foolish enough to be caught outside the

safety of civilization. Civilization was Order, and mankind promoted Order. Animals and the wild

promoted Chaos, and as such now arose the potential for Chaos animals: Monsters. This Chaotic

environment of monsters, wild animals and climactic conditions was the natural state of things. It

was through Order, through obeyance to rulers, to a God or Gods, through paying taxes and

contributing to society that you fed Order, and fought back Chaos. That is the apocalypse here, that

Chaos is rising, ever rising, and despite all the grandeur around us, it will still fall back to its natural

state some day. A daily struggle must be continually fought by members of society to fight back

that influence for as long as possible, for if we fail, we can just look outside the city walls to see

what awaits us. Chaos Rising is an element of Norse mythology, as well as Marduk of Babylonian

beliefs. I feel that by far this is the msot common type of apocalypse referred to in our mass media.

Whether its the real life threat of asteroids, climate change, resource depletion, or their fictional

versions (Armageddon, Day After Tomorrow, and Mad Max, in that order, among many others).

This typology is an unrelenting eternal peril, and instead of triumph it requires vigilance.

The second typology can be referred to as Battle in Heaven. This form arose out of the idea of a

final confrontation between Order and Chaos, however this time the outcome is known, and it will

be Order. Order will eventually triumph over Chaos, pushing it back into the blackness once and

for all, and you must be on Order's side. This promotes the concept of apocalyptic preparation

being internal, a readying for the impending battle, the spiritual arms race. The most dramatic

representation for a member of western culture would undoubtedly be the book of Revelations and

the myriad beliefs and prophecies associated with it. The concept of The Rapture, the actual

physical “retrieval” of only the faithful, leaving the tarnished, heretics, atheists, the “Other” to

endure the apocalypse on Earth before the institution of a divine kingdom. This typology ties
closely to messianic concepts, the savior of mankind, and in the European descended media of the

past two millenia certainly shows a major influence of this prediction, the gentle benefactor Lord,

sheathed in righteousness as actual armor, facing off against Satan, Lucifer, Baal, whatever

incarnation of Chaos or Evil that society needs to see destroyed. However, due to the largely

religious belief structure underlying this typology (even moreso than it is the basis for all three

typologies), most media portrayals only hint at this form, with the exception of non-secular material

such as the Left Behind series of books and films, however the savior model is represented

throughout literature, from Beowulf to Neo, from Odysseus to Aragorn.

The final form could be alled the Gnostic Consciousness Shift, or merely a shift in consciousness.

This form, based in the early Gnostic Christian sect, posits the impending end not as a physical

destruction, but instead an internalized change, or rebirth, and that this awakening will harken in a

new era. This form tends to see ourselves as the key to our own salvation, usually incorporating an

altered lifestyle or entirely new, unknown aspect which will allow a better, more efficient

relationship with the cosmos. This form is most frequently associated with the New Age

movement. Although its overt portrayal may be somewhat absent, it often is seen throughout

literature and cinema as an epilogue. The rebirth of horticulture, egalitarianism, or even barter at

the end of many post apocalyptic films (including Reign of Fire, The Postman, Day of the Dead,

etc) seem to denote a new understanding of their environmental and social impact, perhaps tying it

back in again with typology 1 and climate.

3. Ours is increasingly an information based society. Any culture which develops a culture

invariably will embrace that format not only as a method of recording, but also as a cultural

waypoint, a method to understand our universe in some way. Being a subject of the Gregorian

calendar, I can comfortably view the universe in terms of thousands and millions of years, because
of my comfort in the base ten system as well as our common adherence to our concept of a year.

These comforts are wholly abstractions though. The universe cannot be measured by the orbiting of

one speck around another, but for those of us upon that speck, the importance is magnified

immensely. We can all use a calendar, however not many of us would be qualified to conceive

wholly a new one, or understand in exact detail the inner workings of our own. Calendars do not

need to be understood for them to work, they just work. This knowledge, however, is hidden.

Other knowledge tied into calndars could be hidden as well, secret forbidden knowledge which

could benefit you, or warn you, or prepare you. Today, in our information age, the idea of hidden

knowledge is commonplace. The more connected we are, the more data we have unbridled access

to, the more aware we are of how much information is being denied us, and this information takes

on mythic qualities. Suddenly instead of it simply being hidden, its guarded. Sometimes by

entities, like the Illuminati, NWO, a Government and their Men in Black (before Will Smith, of

course) will seek out and actively suppress information they deem too important. This distrust of

the storekeeeper and emphasis instead on the potential of that locked away understanding become

embodied in the cultural psyche; within a few years we went from laughing at conspiracy theorists

as crackpots, to idolizing them in the form of Sculder and Mully, to embodying the conspiracy

theorist itself as seen with the climate of the recent election (Secret religions, birth certificates, and

Kenyan interests are not the obfuscated understandings of a society with an understanding of the

fate of billions of people, only billions of dollars). It is easy to apply these concepts to ones own

plight, to look for these connected points, to see the truth in claims regarding what the Maya knew

about 2012, or whether or not Egyptians had lightbulbs or Babylon had batteries. Daily we hear

reports of high ranking government officials and their suppression of information or events, for

personal or official reasons, and it would not be difficult to look for deeper threats behind the false

veneer provided by media outlets.

4. The Zombie phenomena of recent years has some extremely unique aspects to it. Probably
the most useful of all the doomsday scenarios, the zombie pandemic seems to be a reflection of the

times from which it comes. The origins are in the slave trade in western Africa, the subsequent

intermingling of disparate peoples in a new environment created a distilled form of their traditional

beliefs, combined with myriad picked up elements as well as the faith of their opressors. From the

Voudoun tradition of Baron Samedi, the belief arose of a new form of hell, in which death was not a

release from servitude but merely the completeness of it, to become an utter drone, the zombi. This

mindless servitor would be the abject slave of a bokor, the one who summoned and controlled the

creature. This concept of a living death entered into the parlance of America and Europe and spread

throughout, eventually becoming so famous as to spawn the 1932 film White Zombie, in which a

white bokor assists a white eccentric landowner by turning a young, beautiful, white woman into a

zombie in Haiti. White people of course fix everything, with minimal white deaths (there is a

pattern here). The source of the horror not entirely being that this wickedness exists, but that it now

could affect the white populace, both as victims and the corrupted. While this form of the zombie

remained comparatively true to the traditional concept of the zombie, it failed to spark the flames

which would come later. Sporadic films similarly inspired would come out, including 1943's I

Walked with a Zombie. However most would agree that the genre was ignited when George

Romero released Night of the Living Dead in 1968. This film took a number of liberties from the

traditional concept. First of all, the zombies are overtly dead, and now pose the dual threat of being

attracted to the survivors as well as being cannibals. Now, instead of the odd mindless henchman, a

puppet that posed little threat without a puppetmaster, you have a shambling, devouring wall of

shambling corpses, and with it the oncoming fear of a Cold War America; Communists. Regardless

of ones position on the topic, Night of the Living Dead creates a perfect parable for the complete

infectious takeover feared from a real communist threat. In it, despite their best efforts, the heroes

do not last. While this film released an explosion of copycat films, none held the combination of

zombie circumstance and social commentary so tightly together as Romero. Dawn of the Dead was

released in 1978, and reflected the shifting trends of its time. The 1970s, though still a Cold War
era, was not confronted with it as daily as in the 1960s, a climate of consumerism had become

widespread, and it was for this new time Romero tailored his tale. The film opens with a military

police swat unit clearing out a tennant apartment building of a zombie outbreak, but the bigoted

police seem to kill more of the black tenants than the zombies themselves, strong commentary on

the perceived reliability of law enforcement agencies in the event of a protracted emergency.

Survivors of this encounter manage to make their way to a shopping mall, where they then fortify

themselves within, and express the ultimate euphoristic consumer joy within. They live

comfortably, eat well, have great leisure, a high standard of living by simply ignoring the threat

outside. Eventually that paradise is shattered by an invading band of raiders, whose attack permits

the bands of walking dead outside to re-enter the mall-fortress. The film was extremely popular,

even issuing forth an unofficial Italian sequel, “Zombi” or “Zombi 2” depending on the version,

which itself has spawned a noticeable following (rare instance of shark vs. Zombie). However,

1985's Day of the Dead, the third of Romero's trilogy, and pace keeper for zombie commentary, met

with a less welcome response. The Reagan 1980s were not a popular time for the bleak film,

focusing on the final days of human existence as the pandemic escalates, it pits a group of scientists

against a group of soldiers, both at their wits ends and getting increasingly desperate. The criticism

of a military state and its ultimate outcome was not a popuar one, and as a result for a time, spoof

films like Return of the Living Dead, which introduced the concept of zombies eating only the

brain, as well as moaning that desire ad nauseam, were the only manner in which the genre survived

through the 1990s, a period of comparative contentment in the United States. It wasn't until 2002s

28 Days Later that the genre would receive its first shot in the arm in decades. This time, instead of

shambling corpses, the threat was an enraged overenergetic plague victim. While these new forms

would redefine the role zombies would play, it still did little to change the commentary. Although

Romero would go on to use his zombie films to criticise class struggle with Land of the Dead as

well as modern participatory online culture with Diary of the Dead, the new fast zombies would be

surgically attached with 2004's Dawn of the Dead remake, following a nearly identical plotline to
the original with updates in scope, believability, and especially in updating the zombies themselves.

Nevertheless, the zombies are still the roving hordes of the mindless consumer. This is the villain

of the moment, the mindless communists, the mindless consumers, the mindless warmongers, the

mindless “Other” always. To an increasingly liberal society, the zombie represents the mindless

consumption of the Bush era conservative, perhaps just as to the conservative the rash of recent

Vampire reimaginings are how they perceive the liberals, sexually overstimulated leeches on society

who feed off others. Each is a convenient monster to pin hatred for the climates nemesis of the

moment. While many apocalypses have been presented on seemingly solid evidence (Soilent Green

and overpopulation, Waterworld and early global warming concepts), only zombies have the good

fortune to be a wild card, able to take on any role demanded of it, and as such a reliable sounding

board, an idea that is good to “think” about.