"2012 and the Long Count According to the Popol Vuh, a book compiling details of creation accounts known to the K'iche' Maya of the Colonial-era highlands, we are living in the fourth world. The Popol Vuh describes the first three creations that the gods failed in making and the creation of the successful fourth world where men were placed. In the Maya Long Count, the previous creation ended at the start of a 13th b'ak'tun. The previous creation ended on a long count of 12.19.19.17.19. Another 12.19.19.17.19 will occur on December 20, 2012, followed by the start of the thirteenth b'ak'tun, 13.0.0.0.0, on December 21, 2012. - Significance within the New Age movement Two figures within the New Age, the artist and theorist José Argüelles and the late ethnobotanist and psychonaut Terence McKenna, have publicized theories concerning the significance of the end of the cycle. (They arrived at their conclusions separately from one another. They have joinly inspired a number of articles and books that this will be the end of this creation, the next pole shift or, as McKenna speculated in his theories, the end of history and events as "novel" as the origin of life on Earth, which we could not possibly imagine. Other, more mundane speculations involve a worldwide catastrophe, such as a pole shift. The idea of the significance of the date has also increasingly passed into popular culture. - Refutation In this age we are approaching the same count again, only there is a common misconception of the Maya's practice of abbreviating their dates to five vigesimal places. According to the Maya there will be a baktun ending in 2012, a significant event being the end of the 13th 394 year period, but not the end of the world. - Inscriptions beyond 2012 Maya stela occasionally show dates beyond 2012. Most of these are in the form of "distance dates", where a Long Count date is given with a distance date to be added. For example, on Tablet of Inscriptions from Palenque were found the following Long Count date: 9.8.9.13.0 8 Ahau 13 Pop (24 March 603 Gregorian) with a distance date of 10.11.10.5.8. The resulting date is given as 1.0.0.0.0.8 5 Lamat 1 Mol, or 21 October 4772 – almost 3,000 years into the future. The king Pacal of Palenque predicted that on this date the eightieth Calendar Round anniversary of his accession will be celebrated, suggesting he did not believe the world would end in 2012. - Summary Despite the publicity generated by the 2012 date, Susan Milbraath, curator of Latin American Art and Archaeology at the Florida Museum of Natural History, stated that "We [the archaeological community] have no record or knowledge that [the Maya] would think the world would come to an end" in 2012. "For the ancient Maya, it was a huge celebration to make it to the end of a whole cycle," says Sandra Noble, executive director of the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies in Crystal River, Fla. To render Dec. 21, 2012, as a doomsday or moment of cosmic shifting, she says, is "a complete fabrication and a chance for a lot of people to cash in." Source and further information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesoamerican_Long_Count_calendar#2012_and_the_Long_Count

Its the start of the new 400 year period, according to the Mayans

There three calenders in one. Sorta like having Easter on a different day each year, because it's on a moon calender. The everyday count is the moon year. The long count measures the 70 year wobble the earth makes. The third measures the celestial equatorial movement. It's a conjuction of all three calenders and the fifth world will begin, symbolized by the face in the middle. The first four were animals.

Because, the last long count calender they completed before the fall of their civilization ended in 2012. The exact date also corresponds with the celestial convergence(when the earth moon and galactic core are all in perfect alignment.)

http://www.greatdreams.com/2012.htm

Ahhh, Man...the end of the world right before Christmas? Thanks for nothin Myans...

The mayan calendar ends in 2012 because that is when they believed that the world will end, but there is an other theory that says the world will not end just the human race because aliens will be found and will start mating with humans to make a new race.

maybe they ran out of paper and could not go any further with the dates?

If you look at it another way, the Mayans weren't clever enough to predict 'World's end' or something similar because they couldn't even predict their own end. :o)

This crap is only speculation. Nobody knows why it ended on Dec. 21, 2012. This crap was started by 'Doomsday nuts' and is based on the fact that our solar system will line up in a straight line with the 'Black Hole' in the center of the Milky Way. This alignment is supposed to cause some freak thing to happen and destroy the Earth, or at least all humans. The only problem with this theory, that they never speak of, is that the solar system lines up with the 'Black Hole' every Dec. 21st.

That is when the Myans believed the world would end.

they were almost obsessed with astronomy so they when by that and they believed a solar alignment with the sun and the earth will occur on Dec 21st 2012... when their calendar stops.

If this question hasn't been adequately answered, it's certainly not because it hasn't been asked over and over on answerbag.

They ran out of paper. Joking aside, there are many Mayan references to events after 2012.

Maybe they thought that a calendar that charted several centuries ahead of time was good enough... I also heard that the calendar was designed like a hourglass--once it runs out, just turn it over and it runs again.

A giant meteor destroyed them before they got the chance to finish. +5