San Antonio College Library

"Integrating data from anthropology, archaeology, art history, astronomy, ethnohistory, myth, and linguistics, Rice argues that the Mayan calendars developed about a millennium earlier than commonly thought, around 1200 BC, as an outgrowth of observations of the natural phenomena that scheduled the movements of late Archaic hunter-gatherer-collectors throughout what became Mesoamerica. She asserts that an understanding of the cycles of weather and...

December 21, 2012: the end date of the sophisticated Long Count Calendar created by the ancient Maya in Central America. This companion book to the #1 documentary film about 2012 features interviews with the leading experts-- including Graham Hancock, John Major Jenkins, Daniel Pinchbeck and many others--and insightful, detailed analysis of the broad spectrum of opinion, debate, research and myth regarding the most compelling "end times" prediction...

"This book reconstructs ancient Maya astronomy and cosmology through the astronomical information encoded in Precolumbian Maya art and confirmed by the current practices of living Maya peoples." "This investigation yields new data and a new synthesis of information about the specific astronomical events and cycles recorded in Maya art and architecture. The first major study to focus on the relationship between art and astronomy in ancient Maya culture,...

"Engagingly written revisionist argumentation regarding the ancient origins of the 'Maya' calendars, which this author posits to have originated in Izapa, Soconusco, and then spread to other peoples of Mesoamerica. Draws from intensive interdisciplinary research in astronomy, history, and geography to identify the 'calendars' cradle' on the Pacific slope and to trace their diffusion over time and space. Also relies on extensive 'alignments and orientation'...

Did the Maya really predict that the world would end in December of 2012? If not, how and why has 2012 millenarianism gained such popular appeal? In this deeply knowledgeable book, two leading historians of the Maya answer these questions in a succinct, readable, and accessible style. Matthew Restall and Amara Solari introduce, explain, and ultimately demystify the 2012 phenomenon.