What Do You Think Of Mayan End Date In 2012?

As many of you may already know, the Mayan calendar ends Dec 21, 2012. The Mayans believed that their world would also come to an end on that date. Some view this as a pivotal date for civilization as a whole. Some believe that date marks the end of life on earth or as life as we know it.
The roots of the Mayan civilization can be traced back thousands of years to the Olmecs, an earlier civilization that inhabited an area along the Gulf of Mexico.  The Olmec, which means "rubber people," date back to at least 4000 BC.  They began their rise to civilization around 1500 BC, and are considered to have reached the first advanced stages of high civilization around 550 BC. 

In 500 AD, it is believed that the Maya built their beautiful stepped pyramids and created many stone markers, which illustrated their mathematical understanding of the cosmic cycles of nature and time. By the end of the 10th century AD, the center of Mayan life had shifted to the northern Yucatan.  There was also a shift in their activities.  No longer did they construct huge stone monuments recording countless dates and relationships of temporal cycles.  Instead, there was the emergence of a shorthand notation of the calendar system and the records were kept, not in stone, but in hieroglyphic manuscripts called codices, of which only four survive.

The Mayans created quite an intricate system for their calendar based on their understanding of the universe and their place within it. For the Maya, time was viewed as an endless web of cycles within cycles, all connected by an infinite spiral of eternal now: the Zuvuya. A lot of research has been undertaken to understand the Mayan's, their calendar and their way of life. To learn more, check out these web sites:

http://www.survive2012.com/

http://www.levity.com/eschaton/Why2012.html

http://www.experiencefestival.com/end_of_the_world_2012

http://www.gaianxaos.com/GalacticMayanFinalMission.htm