[Aztlan] FAQ re 2012 & 20 Baktuns vs. 13

[Michael Finley]

Lloyd, I usually find you to be a voice of calm reason .... but methinks 
you may be letting 2012 agitate you a bit too much!  You could end up 
like B.D., a Doonsbury character in a cartoon about 2012 ( (I have it on 
my website, in bottom 1/3 of the page ---  
http://members.shaw.ca/mjfinley/arguelles.html  ). 

Yes, there is only one inscription that directly mentions 13 baktun 
since the last creation . What it says about this date, aka 2012, if 
anything,  is obscure at best.  There is nothing in post-Conquest Maya 
texts that that be said to clearly refer to 2012.  I  kind of like your  
idea  of posting frequent notices reminding the curious of these facts.

But . .. I think a reasonable plea for not dismissing all 2012 talk can 
be made, and summarized thus:

The notion that the completion of 13 baktun since the last creation  was 
expected to mark the end the current round of creation didn't originate 
with  the crazies like Jose Arguelles who expect the sky to fall in 
2012. The suggestion that 2012 might have had some sort of world-shaking 
significance for the Classical Maya may have first been made explicitly 
by Michael Coe, if not by Victoria Bricker.  The lack of textual 
confirmation makes it impossible to elevate the notion above the level 
of plausible speculation, but it is plausible, as plausible as a lot of 
ideas about Maya astronomy and sacred practices that are deemed (for 
better or worse) respectable.  The whole thing really rests on the 
undisputed fact that in the inscriptions,  creation is written 
13.0.0.0.0 rather than 0.0.0.0.0.0, suggesting  that an earlier "world" 
had subsisted for 13 baktuns. Rounds of creation are of course referred 
to in Mayan and Central Mexican texts.  At least as early as S.G. 
Morley, the significance of 13 baktun had been noted by Mayanists. (He 
was unsure whether to call 13 or 20 bakun a "Great Cycle.") Symmetry, 
something valued in Mesoamerican   time-keeping, suggests that the 
scribes might well have believed that big things would happen when 13 
baktuns were completed again.  Was this a major focus of concern  for 
the scribes? Apparently not; If it was we could reasonably expect more 
texts referencing it  to have turned up.   But