<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica"></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; " face="Times"><div style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); display: block; "><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; ">Since I'd been lounging in the Mayan Riviera and dared to purify myself through temezcal, I started to wonder about the glorious Mayan civilization. Said to be as sophisticated, evolved, and unique as ancient Roman and Greek societies, it was by far the most advanced in the pre-Columbian New World.  Even though I had traveled to the Yucatan Peninsula before and visited several ruins, my knowledge of the Mayans was sketchy at best. I'd seen Mel Gibson's movie, Apocalypto, about one man's struggle to escape his fate as a human sacrifice, so he can save his pregnant wife and son (whom he left hiding in a pit).  I know Gibson is troubled and very likely a bigot, but Apocalypto was a guilty pleasure. Still, if I based my impressions of the great Mayan civilization on this movie, I'd have to conclude that they were blood-lusting, corrupt, and perverse, and would still have no idea how they got there.  A more complete source is UCLA professor Jared Diamond's best-selling book, Collapse. I bought it when I was traveling to Rapa Nui (Easter Island), and found that there is also a case study of the Mayans in the book.  But as Diamond points out, because of the numerous ruin sites, writings, and artifacts that have survived today, more scientists have studied the Mayans and more is known about them than about most collapsed cultures. Though the grand and elaborate Mayan civilization no longer exists, Mayan people still do, keeping their traditions alive -- even though most of them converted to Catholicism, "saved" by the conquering Spanish who first landed on these shores in 1527. One particularly devout bishop, Diego de Landa, burned all Mayan texts he could get his hands on in an attempt to eliminate paganism. The destruction is now considered one of history's worst acts of cultural vandalism.  Here again is one of many points where organized religion and I part ways.  Sure, if you can inspire people to worship with you, great.  But if you convert people by force, intimidation, and harassment, what kind of "faith" have you really inspired? The Mayans are particularly celebrated for their stunning art and architecture, as well as for having preserved writing (not books, but tablets and writing on other artifacts) and their intricate and incredibly accurate long-count calendar.  And unless you've been living in a sinote (that's a Mayan sinkhole), you've probably heard that the Mayan calendar predicts the end of the world on December 21, 2012. I'll get to that, but before I do, let's just gloss over the possible theories on why the Mayan civilization collapsed in the first place. Quite frankly, if you want to get paranoid and put your panties in a twist over something (or find a metaphor for the downfall of modern society), this is fertile ground. Scholars and scientists agree, it was likely a combination of social and environmental ills that brought the Mayans down.  Overpopulation (exhaustion of agricultural potential and over-hunting), foreign invasion, peasant revolt, and the collapse of key trade routes likely played a role.  Then environmental disaster, epidemic disease, and climate change kicked the Mayans when they were down. But the key factor that pushed them over the edge? Nobles and politicians of the time failed to react to these threats, instead turning to native forms of conspicuous consumption (building bigger temples than competing kings) and remaining passive and willfully unbelieving until the bitter end.Back to why the Mayans predicted the end would come in 2012.  To be more accurate: The Mayan calendar itself ends on December 21, 2012.  People have interpreted this as the foretelling of the end of the world, and if you enter 2012 into a Google search you will be slammed with some pretty elaborate websites, including www.survive2012.com. None of that really convinced me that the Mayans knew about a cataclysmic event coming our way.  But maybe once they met the Spaniards, they just knew it was a matter of time before we Westerners would be drowning in a cesspool of our own greed and lack of awareness about the natural world.</p><p> </p></div></span></p>