Will Mayan Calendar "Roll Over," Or Not? Twin Falls, Idaho
(KMVT-TV) People may have been predicting the end of the world
since shortly after human society first began. And all the
hoopla over the Mayan calendar cycle that ends this Friday, may
very well be a really big misunderstanding. A local anthropology
professor says the modern day descendants of the original Maya
people are amused at folks these days. That's because some of us
are taking the Mayan "Long Count" – which lasts about five
thousand years – out of context. He says the Maya thought time
began sometime in October 3114 B.C. Jim Woods, Anthropology
Professor from the College of Southern Idaho, says, "What's
significant about that date, I don't know. The Maya just said
that's Day One, that's when time started. And from that date
3114 B.C., every day counted as one. That's called the Long
Count." Woods says Maya scholars probably developed the Baktun
or "Long Count" sometime before 800 or 900 A.D. He says the Maya
had a religious calendar that was