Welcome to Maya week! Believe it or not, today’s post is going to tie in both to Mayan archaeology, and our recent theme of disaster preparedness.
About a month ago, I got a fever for a few days. (I don’t know. Thanks for asking. Hope it was. I’m fine now.) Of course, one of the perfect things to do while feverish is lie on the sofa and watch disaster movies that are nearly 3 hours long. Perhaps the fever was the reason I enjoyed this one so much, I don’t know. You be the judge …
As you can see, this movie has every disaster movie trope ever. Cities falling into huge cracks in the ground? Check. Tsunamis and volcanoes? Check. Evil powerful people refusing to save or warn the masses? Also check. Also, vehicles jumping over gaps, cars driving just ahead of the dust cloud, planes flying just ahead of the falling building, and the dog not dying. Also, Woody Harrelson as the crazy conspiracy theorist who turns out to be right.
I guess the only disaster movie trope that doesn’t make itself known is zombies.
Do you remember that in the years before 2012, there was a lot of talk about the Mayan calendar predicting that that year would bring a world-ending disaster? The Mayans were mathematical geniuses who had these really elaborate calendars and they would calculate dates into the extremely distant past and future. They also, like many cultures worldwide, had a cosmology that involved cataclysmic disasters recurring in a cycle. This movie imagines how it would have been if they were right, not just about recurring disasters but about the exact dates.
But it gets better. The type of disaster the movie envisions is earth crust slippage, a geological disturbance so vast that it would cause massive earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and – as an indirect result – massive tsunamis worldwide.
Graham Hancock, in his book Fingerprints of the Gods, speculated that just such a slippage occurred between about 14,500 and 12,500 BC, and that this gave rise to the many disaster myths that are found worldwide, and to the obsession with astronomy and with predicting future disasters that we find in some ancient cultures including the Maya. This theory was originally floated by Charles Hapgood. I was really tickled that the movie even mentioned Hapgood by name.
My post about Graham Hancock’s theory of earth crust slippage here.
My post about the problems with Hapgood’s theory here.
If you are a disaster movie buff, you have probably already seen this one. If you aren’t, perhaps you wouldn’t enjoy 2012. If, like me, you are in the sweet spot – or have a fever – I highly recommend 2012 as a solid few hours of entertainment.
Out of Babel 
I remember people speculated about the world coming to an end back in 2012. However, I didn’t see the movie. Gonna check out your post about Hapgood’s theory.
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Thanks, James!
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Ah! I certainly remember the bombardment of Discovery / History Channel documentaries around 2012 about the Mayans and their calendars! … that was about the time that Ancient Aliens aired as well, wasn’t it?!
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Ha ha I don’t know when Ancient Aliens came out, but it would make sense. Some people think Mayan science was seeded by aliens … Which I find sort of patronizing to the Maya … More about that next week, assuming I can get my Internet connection back.
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I’ve never liked those theories … I mean, they’re good for meme. But they so horribly downplay human creativity and problem-solving.
Looking forward to next week!
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Yeah, completely agree. You made my point for me … but I’ll still make it at more length next Friday 😉
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Glad you liked 2012- I do like disaster movies (bit of a guilty pleasure of mine) but for some reason I couldn’t get into 2012 and never finished it (maybe a fever would’ve helped 😉 ) Glad you’re feeling better! x
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Ha, yes, the fever was perhaps the reason then! I was enjoying the silliness. Thanks!
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I don’t know, I don’t have the best taste in disaster movies and definitely enjoy the silliness too (I seem to remember enjoying one once called volcano, I think?) I think I may have been in a bad mood- I’ll give it another try if I get a fever, I think it’d be the perfect movie for that 😉
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Sorry, not into disaster stuff. I tend to try to cope with things I can have some influence on. We prepped for raw so-called Y2K disaster. Took years to get rid of the stuff. We had fruit salad on our cereal in the morning (just kidding). Anyway, that was once. Take me to glory if that’s what’s coming. Nice you can enjoy it.
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Ah yes, I remember Y2K. I mean I remember not-Y2K.
You are right, some things are too big to prep for. Earth crust slippage is one. I’ve moved out to the country, but if the supervolcano under Yellowstone ever blows, we are close enough to Yellowstone that it will get us. You can’t win. Also a Y2K or EMP like event. Probably the only people who are truly ready for that would be the occasional mountain man.
But we can adjust our lifestyle towards self sufficiency enough that we could weather something like, say, a lockdown … Or a local disaster, like the gentleman in yesterday’s post.
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