The end? The Aztec Mayan calendar that predicts the world will end in December

Deep inside a secret room buried for eons within an ancient stone temple in Mexico, something dark and terrible has finally stirred.

Or so the doomsayers, with their vivid imaginations, would have you believe.

The sands of time are running out for the world and not even Indiana Jones can save us now.

The astrological alignments and numerological formulae cannot be wrong: on December 21 this year, the apocalypse foretold 5,125 years ago by the ancient Mayans will come to pass and the world will end.

Of course, it’s fair to say predictions of Armageddon are two a penny.

Harold Camping, an American radio preacher, got thousands of followers worked up when he predicted the Second Coming of Jesus Christ on May 21 last year.

When that didn’t happen, he said the world would end on October 21. And then he quietly retired from his radio show.

But the ‘2012 phenomenon’ — as it is commonly known to its legions of internet followers — is different.

For the Mayans, a famously wise and advanced civilisation which was at its height between 250 and 900AD in the present-day Mexican state of Yucatan and Guatemala, have grabbed everyone’s attention.

The evidence boils down to one simple fact: their 5,125-year calendar — the one used across Central America before the arrival of Europeans — runs out on December 21 this year.

The point is that the Mayans were noted for their extraordinary astronomical observations and mathematical powers.

And if they didn’t think it worth taking their calendar beyond

Public concern is so high that NASA, the U.S. space agency, even has a section debunking the theories of impending doom on its website.

The agency says it has taken more than 5,000 questions from people, some asking if they should kill themselves, their families or their pets.

Archaeologists who have studied the Mayans have been downplaying the apocalypse theories, insisting that the only surviving Mayan reference to any dreadful significance attached to December 21, 2012, was contained on a single ancient stone tablet found at ruins in Tortuguero, southern Mexico, in the 1960s.

According to an inscription on the tablet, a fearsome Mayan god of war and creation may ‘descend’ from the sky on the appointed day.

But then, a few weeks ago, archaeologists had to admit they had found a second piece of evidence — a 1,300-year-old carved brick fragment at a temple ruin in nearby Comalcalco.

The brick, now kept in a vault at Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History, has an inscription on its face which also refers to the date.

The fact that the face of the brick was probably laid facing inward or covered with stucco — suggesting it was not meant to be seen by the Mayan population who visited the temple — has only added to the hysteria of modern doom-mongers.

Scientists insist there is no dire threat on the horizon, while Mayan experts stress that the ancient civilisation’s legacy has simply been misinterpreted.

‘Nothing bad will happen to the Earth in 2012,’ says NASA on its website in the reassuring tones of a parent dealing with a frightened toddler.

‘Our planet has been getting along just fine for more than four billion years, and credible scientists worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012.’

Of course in these conspiracy-obsessed times, there are thousands of cynics who are not convinced.

David Morrison, senior scientist at the NASA Astrobiology Institute, said he had been receiving about ten emails a day from worried members of the public who are ‘seriously, seriously upset’.

A young woman from Denmark wrote to him saying: ‘Mother of one daughter and another coming.

Yesterday I was considering killing myself, the baby in my stomach and my beloved two-year-old daughter before December 2012 for fear of having to experience the Earth’s destruction.’

Another, a 13-year-old American, wrote: ‘I am considering suicide. I am scared to tears . . . I don’t want to live any more, I deserve an explanation.’

A third wrote: ‘I am so scared. My only friend is my little dog. When should I put her to sleep so she won’t suffer when the Earth is destroyed?’

Worried Americans are rushing to buy everything from £17 survival guides to £32,000-per-person places in bunkers that are marketed as being both nuclear bomb and asteroid-proof.

Robert Vicino is a Californian businessman who is building the luxury bunkers in secret locations. His website asks: ‘What if the prophecies are true? Which side of the door do you want to be on?’

He says that he has more than 5,000 Americans booking places, and is now building bunkers in Europe.

Steve Cramer, one man who has reserved his place, insists: ‘We’re not crazy people: these are fearful times. My family wants to survive. You have to be prepared.’

Jason Hodge, a father-of-four who also counts himself a ‘future survivor’, to use the jargon of the apocalypse industry, adds: ‘It’s an investment in life.

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