The doomsday prophecy comes from an ancient carved monument found from the Maya region which covers the Yucatan Peninsula, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador and Ecuador. The region has been home to the indigenous Maya people since 900 BC.
The monument, called the Tortuguero Monument Six, says the world will come to an end December 21, 2012.
According to the document, 11.11 a.m. on that day marks the completion of the 5,125-year-long cycle of the ancient Maya calendar. The closing of the cycle is believed to spell the end of the world, and the start of the new cycle.
As the doomsday date draws nearer, the recently released Hollywood film titled 2012 and a plethora of books have heightened fears of destruction of the world.
But Canadian archeologist Kathryn Reese-Taylor, who teaches at the University of Calgary, says it is not an end-of-the-world prophecy.
She says the translation of the text essentially says that something will occur December 21, 2012, and that it will be similar to something that occurred on another date in the past.
"We don't know what that past occurrence was or what the future occurrence will be. At no point do any of the Maya texts actually prophesize the end of the world,'' she says in a statement.
"It was originally thought by people who study Maya languages that the date refers to the time when a deity would descend upon the earth," the archeologist says.
But 're-examinations of the text now show that may not be the case.''
Reese-Taylor says this vague statement in the Maya document never meant the end of the world among the Maya people. But it is North Americans who have created this interpretation, she says.
"The idea of a Maya prophecy emerged in the 1970s when North American journalists and writers began to cherry pick ideas from the Maya, Aztec and Hopi cultures and created what they now call the Maya prophecy,'' the Canadian archeologist says.
In the 1970s, she says, North America entered a trend of moving away from organized religions and towards exploring indigenous religions and beliefs.
The notion of the Maya prophecy caught on and sparked a money-making industry of books, workshops and tours.
"What is important is that Maya texts still refer to dates beyond December 21, 2012. How the Maya view time is much bigger than the current prophecy suggests,'' the Canadian says.