Doomsday Flops, Rites in Ruins of Mayan Empire

A ceremony on Dec 21,2012 Friday marking the end of a 5,125-year cycle in the Mayan calendar at Tikal, the ancient Mayan city in northern Guatemala

The date — Dec 21,2012 — inspired an Internet-fueled misreading of a Mayan calendar that led many to believe the end of the world would arrive.

The date, aside from the winter solstice, merely marked the end of a 5,125-year cycle — the 13th baktun — and the beginning of a new one, according to interpretations of the Mayans’ long-count calendar.

Mexico’s government archaeologists actually are not sure if the cycle ended Friday or in a few days.

Ceremonies were held at Mayan and other indigenous ruins, emphasizing the dawn of a new era rather than the collapse of the current one.

Descendants of the Mayans greeted the date with a shrug, or for the dwindling numbers still practicing ancient rites, with solemn, more closed ceremonies.

 About 200 journalists descended on the French Village of Bugarach, doubling the population of a place already overrun by visitors looking for a haven

Believers claim that the mountain of Bugarach is a sacred place that will protect them from the end of the world. Some even believe that, on doomsday, they will be spirited away by a group of aliens who live under the mountain.