He holds up a finger, motioning her to stay back, to remain silent.

Dominique watches him kneel on the floor, his eyes-dark windows to a mind whirling a thousand miles an hour. Maybe you’re wrong about him. Maybe he really is certifiable.

The long moment passes. Mick looks up, the intensity of his glare positively frightening.

“You’re right, Dominique, you’re absolutely right,” he whispers. “Whatever’s been predestined to eradicate humanity won’t be arriving from deep space.

“It’s in the Gulf. It’s already here.”

JOURNAL OF JULIUS GABRIEL

JOURNAL OF

JULIUS GABRIEL

In order better to understand and ultimately resolve the mysteries surrounding the Mayan calendar and its doomsday prophecy, one must explore the origins of the cultures that first rose to prominence in the Yucatan.

The first Mesoamericans were seminomadic, appearing in Central America around 4000 BC. Eventually they became farmers, developing corn, a hybrid of wild grass, as well as avocado, tomatoes, and squash.

Then, sometime around 2500 BC, He arrived.

He was a long-faced Caucasian with flowing white beard and hair, a wise man who, according to legend, arrived by sea along the Gulf of Mexico’s tropical lowlands to educate and impart great wisdom unto the natives of the region.

We now refer to these educated natives as the Olmec (meaning: dwellers in the land of rubber) and they eventually became the “Mother Culture” of all Mesoamerica, the first complex society of the Americas. Under the influence of the “bearded one,” the Olmec would unify the Gulf region, their achievements in astronomy, mathematics, and architecture influencing the Zapotec, Mayan, Toltec, and Aztec—cultures which eventually rose to power over the next several thousand years.

Almost overnight, these simple jungle-dwelling farmers were suddenly establishing complex structures and extensive ceremonial centers. Advanced techniques of engineering was incorporated into the designs of architecture and public works of art. It was the Olmec who originated the ancient ball game, as well as the first method of recording events. They also fashioned great monolithic heads out of basalt, ten feet tall, many weighing up to 30 tons each. How these enormous Olmec heads were transported still remains a mystery.

Of greater importance, the Olmec was the first culture in Mesoamerica to erect pyramids using an advanced knowledge of astronomy and mathematics. It was these structures, aligned with the constellations, that reveal the Olmec’s understanding of precession, a discovery that gave rise to the creation myth recorded in the Popol Vuh.

And so it was the Olmec, and not the Maya, who used their unexplainable knowledge of astronomy to create the Long Count Calendar and its prophecy of doom.