The end of the world is nigh. More precisely, it's December 21 this year according to some interpretations of a prophecy by the extinct Mayan civilisation in Mexico.
But no, that's all wrong, Dr Jesus Galindo said in Hong Kong last week.
Mayan carvings did not predict December 2012 to be doomsday, says the Mexican astronomer-archaeologist, but merely the end of an era, and the start of another.
Galindo, a researcher from the Institute of Aesthetic Research at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, gave three talks on Mayan archaeoastronomy (the astronomical knowledge of prehistoric cultures) to clarify the feared prediction.
The ancient Mayans were masters of time and keepers of good calendars, he said, but 'it is important that people know the Mayan predicted that a planetary cataclysm is only a fantastic legend. It's very similar to what happened in 2000, when people were afraid the world would end. In fact, it's nonsense. It only marked the end of an era,' he said at the Space Museum theatre.
The Mayan long calendar count begins in 3,114BC and is divided into roughly 394-year periods called baktun. Mayans held that the number 13 is sacred and the 13th baktun - which takes the form 13.0.0.0.0 - ends on December 21, the winter solstice, this year.