Mexico

Four worlds have already ended. The fifth is fed by hand, and its name is the earthquake.

Mesoamericadrafted

The Mexica cosmos is a series of suns, each ended by catastrophe and each replaced. The sun stone in Mexico City is the monument to this idea: the four dead suns around the face of the fifth, whose sign Ollin — movement — is also the earthquake that will end it. Ritual sacrifice was, in this theology, the maintenance that kept the sun moving.

Traditions

Mesoamerican World Ages

drafted

The Mesoamerican cosmos is a series of world-ages, each created, destroyed, and replaced. The Aztec five suns, the K'iche' failed creations of the Popol Vuh, and the Maya Long Count all treat the end as rhythm rather than finale — and one of those rhythms, the 2012 b'ak'tun completion, became the most believed failed prediction in modern history.

3 myths

Stories

The Five Suns: Four Worlds That Ended

drafted

The Mexica cosmos has already ended four times — jaguars, hurricanes, fire, flood — and the fifth sun, the sun of movement, is fated to end in earthquakes.

cyclical · battle · flood · fire · decay

The Long Count and the Year Nothing Happened

drafted

The most believed end of the world in history was built from a calendar reset the Maya never called an apocalypse — a case study in how apocalypses are manufactured.

cyclical · cosmic