Mexican archaeologists have acknowledged a discovery of second reference to a 2012 apocalypse in a carved fragment found at a southern Mayan ruin site but downplayed the predicted end of the world scenario next year as nothing but a Western interpretation.

The National Institute of Anthropology and History said in a statement that the date of the apocalypse has been found in a carved or molded face of a brick in the Comalcalco ruin in the southern part of the country. The only surviving reference to the 2012 date is found in a stone tablet from the Tortuguero site in the state of Tabasco.

The Comalcalco Brick had been found years ago and had been analyzed thoroughly. It is being kept in storage in the institute. The Tortuguero and Comalcalco inscriptions are estimated to be around 1,300 years old.

The 2012 predicted apocalypse date has been the subject of intense debate among archaeologists and doomsday theorists. It's worth noting that the Mesoamerican calendar doesn't really predict an apocalypse. The Mayans used several calendars and their longest period calendar, the "Long Count" started all the end of the world theories. The Long Count calendar was used by the Maya to document dates beyond 52 years. It began in 3114 B.C. and marked time in 394-year time periods known as Baktuns. The 13th Baktun ends around Dec. 21, 2012. Nowhere did the Maya say that the world was going to end by the 13th Baktun. It was just a special future anniversary because the number 13 was a sacred number for the Mayans.

The Tortuguero inscription attracted so much attention because it described something that will occur in 2012 involving the Mayan god associated with war and creation. The stone is badly eroded and the glyph can be read as saying, "He will descend from the sky."

The Institute of Archaeology and History reiterated on Thursday that "Western messianic thought has twisted the cosmovision of ancient civilizations like the Maya."

Given the insistence that there will be an impending apocalypse in 2012, the institute is organizing a special round table of 60 Maya experts next week in southern Mexico to "dispel some of the doubts about the end of one era and the beginning of another, in the Mayan Long Count calendar."