AN ancient prediction that the world will end in 2012 was wrongly translated, an expert said yesterday.
The Mayan Doomsday Prophecy made December 21 next year the date of the apocalypse.
But now esteemed Mayan expert Sven Gronemeyer has revealed the world has nothing to worry about after all.
Tablet ... contained prophecy
The prophecy was found on a stone tablet thought to be 1,300 years old.
Mr Gronemeyer, a German who studies the central American civilisation at La Trobe University in Australia, says because the tablet was cracked the hieroglyphs were almost illegible and given the wrong meaning.
He says it merely predicts a Mayan god, Bolon Yokte, will return to Earth on that date.
And because he is the god of creation and war people must "prepare the ground" for his arrival.
He said there was nothing on the tablet to indicate the god will destroy the world. Mr Gronemeyer said: "That date is loaded with a symbolic value."
But crucially he added: "It is the passage of a god and not necessarily a great leap for humanity."
A 2009 blockbuster film, called 2012, used the Mayan prophecy to herald a global catastrophe.