2012 is set to be a momentous time, the very first winter youth Olympic games is going to be held in January, the US are going to hold a presidential election and the United Kingdom will commemorate the diamond jubilee of Queen Elizabeth. But if you're getting excited about 2013 don’t get your hopes up, given that based on some forecasts, the entire world is due to end on December 21, 2012. In case you enjoy Christmas, take full advantage of this season and the next, since based on the Mayan calendar, they'll be your last. Potentially.

Before Europeans showed up in Meso-America, the population employed an elaborate combination of calendars to record their days. The Haab or solar calendar, both a timepiece and Mayan art form, was created from 18 20 day months along with a interval of 5 days called Wayeb to bring the sum to 365.

The Tzolkin however was a cycle of 260 days, thirteen multiplied by 20. No-one has learned quite why 260 days were picked, although it seems the numbers 13 along with 20 were each important to these early cultures. There exists a possibility that it was associated with the amount of time in between a woman's first skipped period and the birth of her child, and made it easier to calculate when a baby would be born, however various other ideas about crop harvesting and astrological observations might be equally correct. Nearly all dates could be established by a combination of the Haab and Tzolin, the cycle would come along one time every fifty-two years, that is about once in every life time.

To observe periods for a longer period than fifty-two years the Mayans applied a different technique which we now call the Long Count calendar. This system is demonstrated in both Olmec and Aztec art and wasn't introduced by the Maya. Dates run forwards from the mythical day zero, the date of the introduction of the current world. Like all cultures the base units were days, with 20 days in a uinal and 18 uinals in a tun (around a year). A K'atun contains twenty tuns and twenty of these a b'ak'tun. Once more the number 13 was important and quite a few inscriptions in Mayan artwork indicate the date changing at the conclusion of 13 b'ak'tuns and spoke of incidents that occur on that particular date. This lead to suggestions that the Mayans envisioned something substantial might occur on the final day of the 13th B'ak'tun. That day has been calculated to be 21st or 23 December 2012. What exactly can we expect?

Well according to a number of scholars nothing at all. There are some references to things taking place about that point in time in inscriptions, but nothing really concrete, so it is really surprising just how much fuss 2012 seems to be generating. A few say there'll a religious evolution, while some refer to a momentous galactic alignment, though this draws on the positioning of the galactic equator, and that can't be established, this doesn't appear extremely probable. But others are worried about planet Niburu.

Collision with planet X (or Niburu) was predicted since 2003, but any planet near enough to be in collision with the Earth in 2012 would now become plainly visible to astronomers in the night sky. Sadly this fictional collision is now confused in the press with the real and expected approach of a large asteroid known as Eros which is likely to pass our planet in 2012. Eros is greater than the asteroid that we believe wiped out the dinosaurs 65 millions years back but since it will never be closer than seventy times the distance from the moon, it's unlikely to do any destruction.

Looking at the Mayan calendar is a great reason to consider just how we measure time and why, to understand the solar cycles which still rule our lives and also to enjoy the fine art of an intriguing culture. As to getting ready for the end of the world, that still would seem a little bit premature.