So according to certain "scholars" the world is going to end tomorrow. Or, I guess more accurately, in about 6 ½ hours (give or take a few micro-seconds). But the six some odd hour's thing is just a guess since the Mayans did not actually say when on the 21st the world was actually going to end.
Now don't get wrong here, I am not thumbing my nose at the Mayans or the scholars who "deciphered" the calendar that suddenly stops on the 21st of the 12th 2012.
Don't give up your day job just yet.
The Maya peoples never disappeared, neither at the time of the Classic period decline nor with the arrival of the Spanish conquistadores and the subsequent Spanish colonization of the Americas. Today, the Maya and their descendants form sizable populations throughout the Maya area and maintain a distinctive set of traditions and beliefs that are the result of the merger of pre-Columbian and post-Conquest ideas and cultures. Millions of people speak Mayan languages today; the Rabinal Achí, a play written in the Achi language, was declared a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2005.
Their empire is gone, but the people are alive and well. I believe that the human sacrifice thing was primarily an Aztec custom, rather than Mayan.
