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Everybody and their dog thinks the world is ending. Last I heard, it has something to do about signs of societal collapse. Something something people losing their sense of culture and values, pandemic yada yada, the economy going to hell for the nth time this century. You know, the usual.
For some reason, even after Y2K and the 2012 Aztec doomsday both not turning out to be true, our global society seems obsessed with the idea that the world may come to an end. We get it, having to go to work and pay bills sucks, but maybe we can try less extreme methods first? After all, if these ancient doomposts are to go by, our world has been on the brink of destruction since the dawn of civilization.
Many Societies in History Had Predictions About the End of the World
1. The Assyrians Thought Society Would Degrade and the World Would End
When it comes to ancient, it doesn’t get much older than the Assyrians whose civilization ruled over parts of Mesopotamia from 900 to 600 B.C.E. Assyrian territories are thought to correspond today with parts of countries such as Iran, Kuwait, Syria, and Turkey. The empire had much humbler beginnings, however, as a nation-state. It was during these early days that the tablet pictured above would be created.
This Assyrian tablet is believed to date back to sometime between 2,800 and 2,500 B.C.E. Due to its age, it’s also the oldest known doomsday prophecy. The tablet speaks of societal collapse and the possible end of the world that will come about because of it.
A translation of the text claims that the world is in its “final days” because the world is “slowly deteriorating into a corrupt society”.
2. The Norse Believed the World Would End In Ragnarok
Few other mythological doomsdays are as well known as the Norse Ragnarok, a final battle where gods and mortals will meet their end. What makes it an interesting doomsday is that it focuses less on the end of mankind and more on the end of gods — beings so powerful and eternal that other mythological traditions do not speak of them ending with us.
As for the details of the Norse doomsday, it’s all very typical of other apocalyptic scenarios you’ve been told. There’s supposed to be a really long winter, a famine, and so much bloodshed that people will kill their own kin.
Some versions of the myth claim that there will be a new cycle of gods and humans that arises out of the destruction.
3. Monatanists Thought the Kingdom of Christ Was Coming Again…in the 2nd Century
The second coming of Christ is a big deal in many Christian sects and it’s supposed to be part of the Christian doomsday prophecy. You may have even heard a fire and brimstone preacher say that the past couple years or so are a sign of impending doom and that we’ll eventually meet our maker. However, people have been waiting for the second coming of Christ pretty much the day after he died.
Montanism was an early Christian sect that originated in the 2nd century C.E. and continued well after the 4th century. The Montanists believed that their leader, Montanus, was the Holy Spirit and that “Jerusalem above” would come down to Earth at the Montanists’ headquarters.
Convenient.
4. The Great Fire of London Was Thought To Be a Sign of the End of Days
The Great Fire of London was a fire that swept through the city in 1666, destroying over 13,000 homes and several churches. Most homes in London at the time were made of wood and a long summer had dried them out, turning the city into an elaborately arranged bonfire. But there was a second material used in building these houses and that was pitch, a flammable mixture of tar and fat. To make matters worse, London had no fire brigade at the time.
Only six people were officially recorded to have died in the incident, but the conflagration was so terrifying that people genuinely believed it was a sign that the end was near or, at the very least, that God was pissed at the British.
A homilist preaching at the House of Commons that year said, “[God] hath employed a more furious element, which by its merciless and devouring flames might in a more lively manner represent unto us the kindling of his wrath against us.”
The year the historic fire occurred added more fuel to the belief that the Great Fire of London was a sign of divine retribution. Babylon Is Fallen, a pamphlet distributed in 1597 and printed by Edward Allde, prophesized an end of days that would happen on 1666, a year that contained the mark of the devil.
“In the year which shall be 1666, this judgment here pronounced shall lay hands on thee. And as all thy fearful wings and feathers, be already descended and blow down, so before that day (which is so nigh at hand) the tyranny of thy malicious heads and cruel claws shall be consumed and brought to naught.” The pamphlet claimed, “And in that day, thy vain body shall be burnt with fire and shall so clean be cut of from the land of the living that neither son nor nephew (as the Prophet said) nor branch nor remnant of thy name shall be found upon the earth.”
Spooky.
Why Are We So Obsessed With the End of the World?
End of the world stories seem like the weirdest thing people can be into from a practical standpoint. An end of the world entails with it the end of our way of life at best and the end of all human life at worst. But it’s this finality that makes doomsday so appealing to people as a collective.
The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, an online dictionary project dedicated to giving names to feelings we can’t name, calls the desire for disaster “lachesism“. Named after the Greek goddess Lachesis who measures the threads of fate, lachesism describes the longing for abrupt, sudden change that drastically alters day-to-day life. It isn’t because disaster, on its own, is desirable but because the change that comes after it is. It’s not uncommon to hear people who’ve had near-death experiences say that it completely reframed their lives from their perspective.
The desire for “death” is actually a desire for rebirth. You can’t get a fresh start without destroying the old.
Archaeologist Chris Begley talks about the longing for an end of days in his book The Next Apocalypse: The Art and Science of Survival. In it, he explains that the radical change of an apocalypse makes us feel like we can have a second chance at life. In that new life, we aren’t whittling away our days behind a desk at a boring office job or putting up with snide relatives who always have something negative to say. Instead, we’re heroes of a narrative who go on a journey throughout a wasteland where we save other people and don’t have student loans that need to be paid off.
“Our apocalyptic fantasies capture something we long for: the chance to do it all over, to simplify, or to get out from under something like debt or loneliness or dissatisfaction.” Begley writes, “It is decluttering on a grand scale. It allows the possibility of living life on our own terms. We can be heroic and put all of our skills to work. We can set our own agenda in ways that we currently cannot.”
