The Mayan Calendars Long Count  begins in 3,114 BC, marking time in roughly 394-year periods known as Baktuns. Thirteen was a significant, sacred number for the Mayas, and the 13th Baktun ends around December 21, 2012. A Mayan stone tablet found in Mexico in the 1960s says something is supposed to happen involving Bolon Yokte, “The God of War” and creation, in 2012 – but the end of the prophesy is illegible.

“It’s a special anniversary of creation,” said David Stuart

• David Stuart  – A specialist in Mayan epigraphy at the University of Texas at Austin.

“The Maya never said the world is going to end, they never said anything bad would happen necessarily, they’re just recording this future anniversary on Monument Six.”

It can only get worse for the Mayan Calendar. Next month, Hollywood’s “2012” opens in theaters, featuring earthquakes, meteor showers and a tsunami dumping an aircraft carrier on the White House. A significant time period for the Mayas does end on the date, and enthusiasts have found a series of astronomical alignments that they say coincide in 2012, including one that happens roughly once every 25,800 years and that is “the zero effect” in witch some believe the world will stop rotating and change Earth’s orbit. But most archaeologists, astronomers and Mayas say the only thing likely to hit Earth is a meteor shower of New Age philosophy, pop astronomy, Internet doomsday rumors and TV specials such as one on the History Channel that mixes “predictions” from Nostradamus and the Mayas and asks, “Is 2012 the year the cosmic clock finally winds down to zero days.