Matthew Restall and Amara Solari are historians of colonial Mesoamerica, and this Rowman and Littlefield book is their scholarly study of how a Western apocalyptic tradition came to be projected onto the ancient Maya Long Count calendar, producing the modern 2012 phenomenon. Its strength is that it traces the actual chain of misreading and appropriation from European esoteric and New Age sources through to popular culture, while showing the real distance between these modern constructed systems and what Maya communities themselves historically kept and keep today. Its limit is that it is a study of reception and appropriation specifically, so a claim about the Maya Long Count's own original astronomical or ritual meaning to the people who devised it needs a source in Maya epigraphy or archaeology rather than this reception history.
Facts
Assessment
Reliability Tier1
A scholarly work by historians of colonial Mesoamerica tracing how a Western apocalyptic tradition was projected onto the Maya Long Count, distinguishing modern popular calendar systems from what Maya communities actually keep. NotesHistorians of colonial Mesoamerica on how a Western apocalyptic tradition was projected onto the Maya Long Count, and on the distance between modern "Maya calendar" systems and what Maya communities actually keep. Added because the corpus held no Tier-1 authority on the reception and appropriation of Maya calendrics, which the Dreamspell grouping cannot be described honestly without.
Citation
AuthorMatthew Restall and Amara Solari
PublisherRowman and Littlefield
Publication Year2011
URLhttps://archive.org/details/2012endofworldwe0000rest
Source TypeScholarly work
Claims Backed By This Source (40 claims)
This source backs 40 claims across the atlas. As facts: 28 well-attested, 3 popular myth - corrected. As cited relationships: 1 connected. Plus 8 entities citing it as a general reference with no single fact or relationship attached.
Disposition By Topic
- Calendars, 10 claims: 7 well-attested, 1 popular myth - corrected, 2 general references.
- Categories, 9 claims: 8 well-attested, 1 general references.
- Sources, 8 claims: 8 well-attested.
- Prophecies, 5 claims: 2 well-attested, 1 popular myth - corrected, 1 connected, 1 general references.
- Articles, 3 claims: 3 well-attested.
- Disciplines, 2 claims: 1 popular myth - corrected, 1 general references.
- Cultures, 1 claims: 1 general references.
- Esoteric Texts, 1 claims: 1 general references.
- Religious Events, 1 claims: 1 general references.
Popular myth - corrected
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