Over 2,000 years ago the early Maya formulated a profound galactic cosmology. They saw that the sun, on the winter solstice, was slowly moving toward the heart of the galaxy. With their intelligence intact, they suspected that the world would go through a transformation when the solar and the galactic planes aligned. They devised their Long Count calendar to target when the cosmic alignment would maximize, and that time is AD 2012. We are lucky that the brilliant skywatchers who devised the 2012 calendar left carved monuments and those monuments have survived the decay of centuries, so that we can know exactly what they believed and prophesied about 2012.