The Mayan Calendar, a marvel of calculation produced by the ancient world. While popular belief suggest the calendar ominously ends on the 21^st of December 2012 recent archaeological discoveries may have found the missing years.

The location of this latest discovery is the Mayan city Xultzn, rediscovered nearly a century ago the city has largely remained unexcavated till now.

Funded by Nation Geographic a team has begun the excavation of Xultzn. Led by William Saturno of Boston University, the team has unearthed a small pyramid structure that appears to be the home or workshop of the local town scribe and astronomer. With three walls covered in glyphs, inscriptions and calculations for various Mayan calendars, the workshop is a treasure trove for archaeologists.

Saturno and his team began their excavations at the Xultzn site in 2010. The entire Xultzn city in Guatemala’s Peten region covers an area of 12-square-mile (31-square-kilometer), encompassing thousands of structures. A sprawling complex with many structures still to be uncovered.

The Mayan city dates back to 900 AD, to a period that saw the region ruled by the King of Xultzn, the scribe appears to have been the scribe to this very king. The structure also includes paintings of men in black uniforms, the King on his thrown, a man in red that may be a self-portrait and the calculations. A calendar calculation that stretches 7,000 years into the future.

The significance of 2012 to the Mayan calendar has never centered around the end of the world, instead it signified the end of the fourth long cycle, and the beginning of the 5^th cycle. Also of significance for this period is the culmination of many cycles, in an almost synchronistic fashion.

All cycles begin and end, nothing unusual here, with all of the various cycles having wildly different lengths it is rare though that all cycles would finish at the same time. Solar cycles, Lunar cycles along with the Earths cycles, as measured by the Mayans, are all about to set off their galactic alarm clocks, all at once.

The Mayans were masters of astronomical observation, tracking and mapping the stars as they moved through the heavens. This knowledge was put to grand use producing their famously accurate calendars that we have only in the last century surpassed. The interpretation of these events as always varies amongst those interpreting, relative to their own frame of reference. All we can be sure of is that 2012 has already been a massive year, how will the story end for 2012?

Reference: National Geographic