PhotoBlog - maya

Dec

2012

8:12am, EST

Apocalypse? Poverty a bigger concern for modern Mayans

William Gularte / Reuters

Kekchi Aborigines from Coban protest a day before the Oxlajuj Baktun celebration at the Tikal Mayan ruins in Peten, Guatemala on Dec. 20, 2012.

Indigenous activists protested outside Guatemala's ancient ruins of Tikal on Thursday as members of the country's poverty-stricken Mayan communities sought to draw international attention to their plight ahead of festivities to mark the end of the Mayan calendar, Reuters reports.

According to the Friends of the Maya Foundation, the present-day Mayan population is around six million, with significant communities in El Salvador, Mexico, Guatemala, Belize and Honduras.

Luis Soto / AFP - Getty Images

Indigenous people take part in celebrations marking the end of the Mayan age at Iximche archaeological site in Tecpan municipality, Guatemala, on Dec. 20, 2012. Ceremonies are being held to celebrate the end of the Mayan cycle known as Bak'tun 13 and the start of the new Maya Era on December 21.

Look down on a ruined Maya city

GeoEye

Mayapan's ruins are surrounded by forests in this picture, captured by GeoEye's Ikonos satellite on Sept. 19, 2001.

By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News

Follow @b0yle

This satellite image of the ruins of Mayapan, on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, hints at the apocalypse that befell a Maya kingdom hundreds of years ago.

Mayapan is considered Mexico's last Maya capital, and represents one of the largest assemblages of Maya ruins in the Yucatan. The city was built after the Maya revolted against the lords of Chichen Itza. The largest pyramid is the Castle ("El Castillo") of Kukulkan, made as a smaller replica of Chichen Itza's El Castillo pyramid. Mayapan also is home to many circular buildings, or observatories. The Maya's astronomical knowledge helped them predict the exact time of solar and planetary events and aided in the creation of precise calendars.

The city reached its zenith in the 13th century, but in the mid-1400s, factional strife led to Mayapan's decline. The rulers were killed off by a rival family during a revolt, important buildings were set ablaze, and the city was largely abandoned. By the year 1500, an epidemic drove out the stragglers. The University at Albany's Mayapan Archaeology website delves more deeply into the city's life and death.

This overhead view of Mayapan was captured by GeoEye's Ikonos satellite in 2001, from a height of 423 miles (681 kilometers). It serves as a tribute to the Maya calendar turnover on Dec. 21, as a celebration of the day's non-apocalypse — and as the latest addition to the Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar, which has been serving up views of Earth from space on a daily basis during the holiday season. Follow the links below to catch up on the calendar's previous entries:

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Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other science and space news coverage, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered via email. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about dwarf planets and the search for new worlds.

Holiday calendar: Stairways to heaven

By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News

This satellite image from GeoEye highlights the Maya pyramid known as El Castillo, or the Kukulkan Pyramid, the focal point of a monumental plaza at Chichen Itza on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. The pyramid was apparently constructed with an eye to the calendar: During the spring and autumnal equinoxes, patterns of sunlight move across the main stairway to make it look as if the body of a serpent (Kukulkan) is creeping downward to join up with a giant serpent's head carved in stone at the bottom.

Each of the stairways has 91 steps, and when you add the platform at the top, the total comes to 365 steps — the number of days in a year. The Maya, of course, were expert calendar makers. The fact that their "long count" calendar comes to an end in 2012 has led some to fear that the world will end. But even present-day Maya say that's silly. It's merely the end of a cycle, just as we'll be ending a calendrical cycle in just a couple of weeks.

This view of Chichen Itza represents today's offering for the Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar, which presents daily images of Earth from space through Christmas Day. For a wider perspective on Chichen Itza, check out this Ikonos satellite image. (Can you spot the swimming pools and the baseball diamond in the full-resolution image?)

For more Advent calendar goodies, check out the Web links below:

Connect with the Cosmic Log community by hitting the "like" button on the Cosmic Log Facebook page or following msnbc.com's science editor, Alan Boyle, on Twitter (@b0yle).