For the Mayans, it’s a beginning … never the end

In the photo at right, people gather around a sacred fire at the Mayan archeological site of Iximche in Guatemala during a ceremony marking the end of the 13th Oxlajuj B’aktun today.

The end of the 13th Oxlajuj B’aktun marks a new period in the Mayan calendar, an event only comparable in recent times with the new millennium in 2000.

While the Mayan calendar cycle prompted a wave of doomsday speculation across the globe, few in the Mayan heartland believed the world will end today.

Remember the Y2K scare?