Crystal skull
Encyclopedia
The crystal skulls are a number of human skull
hardstone carving
s made of clear or milky quartz
rock, known in art history as "rock crystal", claimed to be pre-Columbian
Mesoamerica
n artifacts by their alleged finders. However, none of the specimens made available for scientific study have been authenticated as pre-Columbian in origin. The results of these studies demonstrated that those examined were manufactured in the mid-19th century or later, almost certainly in Europe
. Despite some claims presented in an assortment of popularizing literature, legends of crystal skulls with mystical powers do not figure in genuine Mesoamerican or other Native American
mythologies and spiritual accounts.
The skulls are often claimed to exhibit paranormal
phenomena by some members of the New Age
movement, and have often been portrayed as such in fiction
. Crystal skulls have been a popular subject appearing in numerous sci-fi television series, novels, video games and vodka.
in Europe.
Trade in fake pre-Columbian artifacts developed during the late 19th century to the extent that in 1886, Smithsonian
archaeologist William Henry Holmes
wrote an article called "The Trade in Spurious Mexican Antiquities" for Science
. Although museums had acquired skulls earlier, it was Eugène Boban
, an antiquities dealer who opened his shop in Paris in 1870, who is most associated with 19th-century museum collections of crystal skulls. Most of Boban's collection, including three crystal skulls, was sold to the ethnographer Alphonse Pinart
, who donated the collection to the Trocadéro
Museum, which later became the Musée de l'Homme
.
, usually attributed to the Aztec
or Maya civilization
s. Mesoamerican art has numerous representations of skulls, but none of the skulls in museum collections come from documented excavations. Research carried out on several crystal skulls at the British Museum
in 1967, 1996 and again in 2004 has shown that the indented lines marking the teeth (for these skulls had no separate jawbone, unlike the Mitchell-Hedges skull) were carved using jeweler's
equipment (rotary tools) developed in the 19th century, making a supposed pre-Columbian origin problematic. The type of crystal was determined by examination of chlorite
inclusions, and is only to be found in Madagascar
and Brazil
, and thus unobtainable or unknown within pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. The study concluded that the skulls were crafted in the 19th century in Germany, quite likely at workshops in the town of Idar-Oberstein
renowned for crafting objects made from imported Brazilian quartz at this period in the late 19th century.
It has been established that both the British Museum and Paris's Musée de l'Homme
crystal skulls were originally sold by the French antiquities dealer Eugène Boban, who was operating in Mexico City between 1860 and 1880. The British Museum crystal skull transited through New York's Tiffany's, whilst the Musée de l'Homme's crystal skull was donated by Alphonse Pinart
, an ethnographer
who had bought it from Boban.
An investigation carried out by the Smithsonian Institution
in 1992 on a crystal skull provided by an anonymous source who claimed to have purchased it in Mexico City in 1960 and that it was of Aztec origin concluded that it, too, was made in recent years. According to the Smithsonian, Boban acquired the crystal skulls he sold from sources in Germany – findings that are in keeping with those of the British Museum.
A detailed study of the British Museum and Smithsonian crystal skulls was accepted for publication by the Journal of Archaeological Science in May 2008. Using electron microscopy
and X-ray crystallography
, a team of British and American researchers found that the British Museum skull was worked with a harsh abrasive substance such as corundum
or diamond
, and shaped using a rotary disc tool made from some suitable metal. The Smithsonian specimen had been worked with a different abrasive, namely the silicon-carbon compound carborundum
which is a synthetic substance manufactured using modern industrial techniques. Since the synthesis of carborundum dates only to the 1890s and its wider availability to the 20th century, the researchers concluded "[t]he suggestion is that it was made in the 1950s or later".
mirrors, ritual objects widely depicted in Aztec art. Although a few surviving obsidian mirrors come from archaeological excavations, none of the Aztec-style obsidian mirrors are so documented. Yet most authorities on Aztec material culture consider the Aztec-style obsidian mirrors as authentic pre-Columbian objects. Archaeologist Michael E. Smith
reports a non peer-reviewed find of a small crystal skull at an Aztec site in the Valley of Mexico. Crystal skulls have been described as "A fascinating example of artifacts that have made their way into museums with no scientific evidence to prove their rumored pre-Columbian origins." A similar case is the "Olmec-style" face mask in jade
; hardstone carvings of a face in a mask form. Curators and scholars refer to these as "Olmec-style", as to date no example has been recovered in an archaeologically controlled Olmec
context, although they appear Olmec in style. However they have been recovered from sites of other cultures, including one deliberately deposited in the ceremonial precinct of Tenochtitlan (Mexico City
), which would presumably have been about 2,000 years old when the Aztecs buried it, suggesting these were as valued and collected as Roman antiquities were in Europe.
made in 1990, Crystal Skull of Lubaantun. It has been noted upon examination by Smithsonian researchers to be "very nearly a replica of the British Museum skull--almost exactly the same shape, but with more detailed modeling of the eyes and the teeth."
Anna Hedges claimed that she found the skull buried under a collapsed altar inside a temple in Lubaantun
, in British Honduras
, now Belize
. As far as can be ascertained, F.A. Mitchell-Hedges himself made no mention of the alleged discovery in any of his writings on Lubaantun. Also, others present at the time of the excavation have not been documented as noting either the skull's discovery or Anna's presence at the dig.
In a 1970 letter, Anna also stated that she was, "told by the few remaining Maya that the skull was used by the high priest to will death." For this reason, the artifact is sometimes referred to as "The Skull of Doom". An alternative explanation is a play on 'Skull of Dunn' (Dunn being an associate of Mitchell-Hedges). Anna Mitchell-Hedges toured with the skull from 1967 exhibiting it on a pay-per-view basis, and she continued to give interviews about the artifact until her death in 2007.
The skull is made from a block of clear quartz about the size of a small human cranium, measuring some 5 inches (13 cm) high, 7 inches (18 cm) long and 5 inches wide. The lower jaw is detached. In the early 1970s it came under the temporary care of freelance art restorer Frank Dorland, who claimed upon inspecting it that it had been "carved" with total disregard to the natural crystal axes without the use of metal tools. Dorland reported being unable to find any tell-tale scratch marks, except for traces of mechanical grinding on the teeth, and he speculated that it was first chiseled into rough form, probably using diamonds, and the finer shaping, grinding and polishing was achieved through the use of sand over a period of 150 to 300 years. He said it could be up to 12,000 years old. Although various claims have been made over the years regarding the skull's physical properties, such as an allegedly constant temperature of 70 °F (21 °C), Dorland reported that there was no difference in properties between it and other natural quartz crystals.
While in Dorland's care the skull came to the attention of writer Richard Garvin, at the time working at an advertising agency where he supervised Hewlett-Packard
's advertising account. Garvin made arrangements for the skull to be examined at HP's crystal labs at Santa Clara, where it was subjected to several tests. The labs determined only that it was not a composite (as Dorland had supposed), but that it was fashioned from a single crystal of quartz. The lab test also established that the lower jaw had been fashioned from the same left-handed growing crystal as the rest of the skull. No investigation was made by HP as to its method of manufacture or dating.
As well as the traces of mechanical grinding on the teeth noted by Dorland, Mayanist archaeologist Norman Hammond
reported that the holes (presumed to be intended for support pegs) showed signs of being made by drilling with metal. Anna Mitchell-Hedges refused subsequent requests to submit the skull for further scientific testing.
F. A. Mitchell-Hedges mentioned the skull only briefly in the first edition of his autobiography, Danger My Ally (1954), without specifying where or by whom it was found. He merely claimed that "it is at least 3,600 years old and according to legend it was used by the High Priest of the Maya when he was performing esoteric rites. It is said that when he willed death with the help of the skull, death invariably followed". All subsequent editions of Danger My Ally omitted mention of the skull entirely.
The earliest published reference to the skull is the July 1936 issue of the British anthropological journal Man
, where it is described as being in the possession of Mr. Sydney Burney
, a London art dealer who is said to have owned it since 1933. No mention was made of Mitchell-Hedges. There is documentary evidence that Mitchell-Hedges bought it from Burney in 1944. The skull was in the custody of Anna Mitchell-Hedges, the adopted daughter of Frederick. She steadfastly refused to let it be examined by experts (making very doubtful the claim that it was reported on by R. Stansmore Nutting in 1962). Somewhere between 1988–1990 Anna Mitchell-Hedges toured with the skull.
In her last eight years, Anna Mitchell-Hedges lived in Chesterton, Indiana
, with Bill Homann, whom she married in 2002. She died on April 11, 2007. Since that time the Mitchell-Hedges Skull has been in the custody of Bill Homann. He continues to believe in its mystical properties.
first appeared in 1881, in the shop of the Paris antiquarian, Eugène Boban
. Its origin was not stated in his catalog of the time. He is said to have tried to sell it to Mexico's national museum as an Aztec artifact, but was unsuccessful. Boban later moved his business to New York City, where the skull was sold to George H. Sisson
. It was exhibited at the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
in New York City in 1887 by George F. Kunz. It was sold at auction, and bought by Tiffany and Co., who later sold it at cost to the British Museum
in 1897.
This skull is very similar to the Mitchell-Hedges skull, although it is less detailed and does not have a movable lower jaw.
The British Museum catalogues the skull's provenance
as "probably European, 19th century AD" and describes it as "not an authentic pre-Columbian artefact".
It has been established that this skull was made with modern tools, and that it is not authentic.
The largest of the three skulls sold by Eugène Boban to Alphonse Pinart (sometimes called the Paris Skull), about 10 cm (4 in) high, has a hole drilled vertically through its center. It is part of a collection held at the Musée du Quai Branly
, and was subjected to scientific tests carried out in 2007–08 by France's national Centre de recherche et de restauration des musées de France
(Centre for Research and Restoration of the Museums in France, or C2RMF). After a series of analyses carried out over three months, C2RMF engineers concluded that it was "certainly not pre-Columbian, it shows traces of polishing and abrasion by modern tools." Particle accelerator tests also revealed occluded traces of water that were dated to the 19th century, and the Quai Branly released a statement that the tests "seem to indicate that it was made late in the 19th century."
In 2009 the C2RMF researchers published results of further investigations to establish when the Paris skull had been carved. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis indicated the use of lapidary
machine tools in its carving. The results of a new dating technique known as quartz hydration dating (QHD) demonstrated that the Paris skull had been carved later than a reference quartz specimen artifact, known to have been cut in 1740. The researchers conclude that the SEM and QHD results combined with the skull's known provenance indicate it was carved in the 18th or 19th century.
, was mailed to the Smithsonian Institution
anonymously in 1992, and was claimed to be an Aztec
object by its donor and was purportedly from the collection of Porfirio Diaz
. It is the largest of the skulls, weighing 31 pounds (14.1 kg) and is 15 inches (38.1 cm) high. It was carved using carborundum
, a modern abrasive. It has been displayed as a fake at the National Museum of Natural History
.
, that she once used its magical properties to kill a man, and that in another instance, she saw in it a premonition of the John F. Kennedy assassination
.
In the 1931 play The Satin Slipper by Paul Claudel
, King Philip II of Spain uses "a death's head made from a single piece of rock crystal," lit by "a ray of the setting sun," to see the defeat of his Armada in its attack on England (day 4, scene 4, pp. 243–44).
Claims of the healing and supernatural
powers of crystal skulls have no support in the scientific community, which has found no evidence of any unusual phenomena associated with the skulls nor any reason for further investigation, other than the confirmation of their provenance and method of manufacture.
Another novel and historically unfounded speculation ties in the legend of the crystal skulls with the completion of the current Maya calendar
b'ak'tun-cycle on December 21, 2012, claiming the re-uniting of the thirteen mystical skulls will forestall a catastrophe allegedly predicted or implied by the ending of this calendar. An airing of this claim appeared (among an assortment of others made) in The Mystery of the Crystal Skulls, a 2008 program produced for the Sci Fi Channel
in May and shown on Discovery Channel Canada in June. Interviewees included Richard Hoagland
, who attempted to link the skulls and the Maya to life on Mars, and David Hatcher Childress
, proponent of lost Atlantean civilizations and anti-gravity claims.
Crystal skulls are also referenced by author Drunvalo Melchizedek
in his book Serpent of Light. He writes that he came across indigenous Mayan descendants in possession of crystal skulls at ceremonies at temples in the Yucatán, which he writes contained souls of ancient Mayans who had entered the skulls to await the time when their ancient knowledge would once again be required.
The alleged associations and origins of crystal skull mythology in Native American spiritual lore, as advanced by neoshamanic
writers such as Jamie Sams, are similarly discounted. Instead, as Philip Jenkins
notes, crystal skull mythology may be traced back to the "baroque legends" initially spread by F.A. Mitchell-Hedges, and then afterwards taken up:
Human skull
The human skull is a bony structure, skeleton, that is in the human head and which supports the structures of the face and forms a cavity for the brain.In humans, the adult skull is normally made up of 22 bones...
hardstone carving
Hardstone carving
Hardstone carving is a general term in art history and archaeology for the carving for artistic purposes of semi-precious stones, also known as gemstones, such as jade, rock crystal , agate, onyx, jasper, serpentine or carnelian, and for an object made in this way. Normally the objects are small,...
s made of clear or milky quartz
Quartz
Quartz is the second-most-abundant mineral in the Earth's continental crust, after feldspar. It is made up of a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall formula SiO2. There are many different varieties of quartz,...
rock, known in art history as "rock crystal", claimed to be pre-Columbian
Pre-Columbian
The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic period to European colonization during...
Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica is a region and culture area in the Americas, extending approximately from central Mexico to Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, within which a number of pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and...
n artifacts by their alleged finders. However, none of the specimens made available for scientific study have been authenticated as pre-Columbian in origin. The results of these studies demonstrated that those examined were manufactured in the mid-19th century or later, almost certainly in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. Despite some claims presented in an assortment of popularizing literature, legends of crystal skulls with mystical powers do not figure in genuine Mesoamerican or other Native American
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
mythologies and spiritual accounts.
The skulls are often claimed to exhibit paranormal
Paranormal
Paranormal is a general term that designates experiences that lie outside "the range of normal experience or scientific explanation" or that indicates phenomena understood to be outside of science's current ability to explain or measure...
phenomena by some members of the New Age
New Age
The New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and then infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational...
movement, and have often been portrayed as such in fiction
Fiction
Fiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical,...
. Crystal skulls have been a popular subject appearing in numerous sci-fi television series, novels, video games and vodka.
Crystal skull collections
A distinction has been made by some researchers between the smaller bead-sized crystal skulls, which first appear in the mid-19th century, and the larger (approximately life-sized) skulls that appear toward the end of that century. The larger crystal skulls have attracted nearly all the popular attention in recent times, and some researchers believe that all of these have been manufactured as forgeriesForgery
Forgery is the process of making, adapting, or imitating objects, statistics, or documents with the intent to deceive. Copies, studio replicas, and reproductions are not considered forgeries, though they may later become forgeries through knowing and willful misrepresentations. Forging money or...
in Europe.
Trade in fake pre-Columbian artifacts developed during the late 19th century to the extent that in 1886, Smithsonian
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
archaeologist William Henry Holmes
William Henry Holmes
William Henry Holmes was an American anthropologist, archaeologist, geologist and museum director.-Life:...
wrote an article called "The Trade in Spurious Mexican Antiquities" for Science
Science (journal)
Science is the academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is one of the world's top scientific journals....
. Although museums had acquired skulls earlier, it was Eugène Boban
Eugène Boban
Eugène Boban or Boban-Duvergé was a French antiquarian. He was the official archaeologist of the court of Maximillian I of Mexico, and a member of the French Scientific Commission in Mexico...
, an antiquities dealer who opened his shop in Paris in 1870, who is most associated with 19th-century museum collections of crystal skulls. Most of Boban's collection, including three crystal skulls, was sold to the ethnographer Alphonse Pinart
Alphonse Pinart
Alphonse Pinart was a French explorer, philologist, and ethnographer. He was an early champion of the theory that the Americas were first populated by migration across the Bering Strait. To support his research, he made extensive travel in the Pacific, from Alaska and the Aleutian Islands to...
, who donated the collection to the Trocadéro
Trocadéro
The Trocadéro, , site of the Palais de Chaillot, , is an area of Paris, France, in the 16th arrondissement, across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower. The hill of the Trocadéro is the hill of Chaillot, a former village.- Origin of the name :...
Museum, which later became the Musée de l'Homme
Musée de l'Homme
The Musée de l'Homme was created in 1937 by Paul Rivet for the 1937 Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne. It is the descendant of the Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadéro, founded in 1878...
.
Research into crystal skull origins
Many crystal skulls are claimed to be pre-ColumbianPre-Columbian
The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic period to European colonization during...
, usually attributed to the Aztec
Aztec
The Aztec people were certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, a period referred to as the late post-classic period in Mesoamerican chronology.Aztec is the...
or Maya civilization
Maya civilization
The Maya is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as for its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. Initially established during the Pre-Classic period The Maya is a Mesoamerican...
s. Mesoamerican art has numerous representations of skulls, but none of the skulls in museum collections come from documented excavations. Research carried out on several crystal skulls at the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
in 1967, 1996 and again in 2004 has shown that the indented lines marking the teeth (for these skulls had no separate jawbone, unlike the Mitchell-Hedges skull) were carved using jeweler's
Jewellery
Jewellery or jewelry is a form of personal adornment, such as brooches, rings, necklaces, earrings, and bracelets.With some exceptions, such as medical alert bracelets or military dog tags, jewellery normally differs from other items of personal adornment in that it has no other purpose than to...
equipment (rotary tools) developed in the 19th century, making a supposed pre-Columbian origin problematic. The type of crystal was determined by examination of chlorite
Chlorite
The chlorite ion is ClO2−. A chlorite is a compound that contains this group,with chlorine in oxidation state +3. Chlorites are also known as salts of chlorous acid.-Oxidation states:...
inclusions, and is only to be found in Madagascar
Madagascar
The Republic of Madagascar is an island country located in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa...
and Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
, and thus unobtainable or unknown within pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. The study concluded that the skulls were crafted in the 19th century in Germany, quite likely at workshops in the town of Idar-Oberstein
Idar-Oberstein
Idar-Oberstein is a town in the Birkenfeld district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. As a Große kreisangehörige Stadt , it assumes some of the responsibilities that for smaller municipalities in the district are assumed by the district administration...
renowned for crafting objects made from imported Brazilian quartz at this period in the late 19th century.
It has been established that both the British Museum and Paris's Musée de l'Homme
Musée de l'Homme
The Musée de l'Homme was created in 1937 by Paul Rivet for the 1937 Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne. It is the descendant of the Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadéro, founded in 1878...
crystal skulls were originally sold by the French antiquities dealer Eugène Boban, who was operating in Mexico City between 1860 and 1880. The British Museum crystal skull transited through New York's Tiffany's, whilst the Musée de l'Homme's crystal skull was donated by Alphonse Pinart
Alphonse Pinart
Alphonse Pinart was a French explorer, philologist, and ethnographer. He was an early champion of the theory that the Americas were first populated by migration across the Bering Strait. To support his research, he made extensive travel in the Pacific, from Alaska and the Aleutian Islands to...
, an ethnographer
Ethnography
Ethnography is a qualitative method aimed to learn and understand cultural phenomena which reflect the knowledge and system of meanings guiding the life of a cultural group...
who had bought it from Boban.
An investigation carried out by the Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
in 1992 on a crystal skull provided by an anonymous source who claimed to have purchased it in Mexico City in 1960 and that it was of Aztec origin concluded that it, too, was made in recent years. According to the Smithsonian, Boban acquired the crystal skulls he sold from sources in Germany – findings that are in keeping with those of the British Museum.
A detailed study of the British Museum and Smithsonian crystal skulls was accepted for publication by the Journal of Archaeological Science in May 2008. Using electron microscopy
Electron microscope
An electron microscope is a type of microscope that uses a beam of electrons to illuminate the specimen and produce a magnified image. Electron microscopes have a greater resolving power than a light-powered optical microscope, because electrons have wavelengths about 100,000 times shorter than...
and X-ray crystallography
X-ray crystallography
X-ray crystallography is a method of determining the arrangement of atoms within a crystal, in which a beam of X-rays strikes a crystal and causes the beam of light to spread into many specific directions. From the angles and intensities of these diffracted beams, a crystallographer can produce a...
, a team of British and American researchers found that the British Museum skull was worked with a harsh abrasive substance such as corundum
Corundum
Corundum is a crystalline form of aluminium oxide with traces of iron, titanium and chromium. It is a rock-forming mineral. It is one of the naturally clear transparent materials, but can have different colors when impurities are present. Transparent specimens are used as gems, called ruby if red...
or diamond
Diamond
In mineralogy, diamond is an allotrope of carbon, where the carbon atoms are arranged in a variation of the face-centered cubic crystal structure called a diamond lattice. Diamond is less stable than graphite, but the conversion rate from diamond to graphite is negligible at ambient conditions...
, and shaped using a rotary disc tool made from some suitable metal. The Smithsonian specimen had been worked with a different abrasive, namely the silicon-carbon compound carborundum
Silicon carbide
Silicon carbide , also known as carborundum, is a compound of silicon and carbon with chemical formula SiC. It occurs in nature as the extremely rare mineral moissanite. Silicon carbide powder has been mass-produced since 1893 for use as an abrasive...
which is a synthetic substance manufactured using modern industrial techniques. Since the synthesis of carborundum dates only to the 1890s and its wider availability to the 20th century, the researchers concluded "[t]he suggestion is that it was made in the 1950s or later".
Speculations on smaller skulls
None of the skulls in museums come from documented excavations. A parallel example is provided by obsidianObsidian use in Mesoamerica
Obsidian is a naturally formed volcanic glass that was an important part of the material culture of Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. Obsidian was a highly integrated part of daily and ritual life, and its widespread and varied use may be a significant contributor to Mesoamerica's lack of metallurgy...
mirrors, ritual objects widely depicted in Aztec art. Although a few surviving obsidian mirrors come from archaeological excavations, none of the Aztec-style obsidian mirrors are so documented. Yet most authorities on Aztec material culture consider the Aztec-style obsidian mirrors as authentic pre-Columbian objects. Archaeologist Michael E. Smith
Michael E. Smith
Michael Ernest Smith is an American archaeologist working primarily with Aztec and general Mesoamerican archaeology. He has written numerous scholarly articles about central Mexican archaeology as well as several books about the Aztecs, among them a widely used textbook...
reports a non peer-reviewed find of a small crystal skull at an Aztec site in the Valley of Mexico. Crystal skulls have been described as "A fascinating example of artifacts that have made their way into museums with no scientific evidence to prove their rumored pre-Columbian origins." A similar case is the "Olmec-style" face mask in jade
Jade
Jade is an ornamental stone.The term jade is applied to two different metamorphic rocks that are made up of different silicate minerals:...
; hardstone carvings of a face in a mask form. Curators and scholars refer to these as "Olmec-style", as to date no example has been recovered in an archaeologically controlled Olmec
Olmec
The Olmec were the first major Pre-Columbian civilization in Mexico. They lived in the tropical lowlands of south-central Mexico, in the modern-day states of Veracruz and Tabasco....
context, although they appear Olmec in style. However they have been recovered from sites of other cultures, including one deliberately deposited in the ceremonial precinct of Tenochtitlan (Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
), which would presumably have been about 2,000 years old when the Aztecs buried it, suggesting these were as valued and collected as Roman antiquities were in Europe.
Mitchell-Hedges skull
Perhaps the most famous and enigmatic skull was allegedly discovered in 1924 by Anna Le Guillon Mitchell-Hedges, adopted daughter of British adventurer and popularist author F.A. Mitchell-Hedges. It is the subject of a video documentaryDocumentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
made in 1990, Crystal Skull of Lubaantun. It has been noted upon examination by Smithsonian researchers to be "very nearly a replica of the British Museum skull--almost exactly the same shape, but with more detailed modeling of the eyes and the teeth."
Anna Hedges claimed that she found the skull buried under a collapsed altar inside a temple in Lubaantun
Lubaantun
Lubaantun is a pre-Columbian ruined city of the Maya civilization in southern Belize, Central America...
, in British Honduras
British Honduras
British Honduras was a British colony that is now the independent nation of Belize.First colonised by Spaniards in the 17th century, the territory on the east coast of Central America, south of Mexico, became a British crown colony from 1862 until 1964, when it became self-governing. Belize became...
, now Belize
Belize
Belize is a constitutional monarchy and the northernmost country in Central America. Belize has a diverse society, comprising many cultures and languages. Even though Kriol and Spanish are spoken among the population, Belize is the only country in Central America where English is the official...
. As far as can be ascertained, F.A. Mitchell-Hedges himself made no mention of the alleged discovery in any of his writings on Lubaantun. Also, others present at the time of the excavation have not been documented as noting either the skull's discovery or Anna's presence at the dig.
In a 1970 letter, Anna also stated that she was, "told by the few remaining Maya that the skull was used by the high priest to will death." For this reason, the artifact is sometimes referred to as "The Skull of Doom". An alternative explanation is a play on 'Skull of Dunn' (Dunn being an associate of Mitchell-Hedges). Anna Mitchell-Hedges toured with the skull from 1967 exhibiting it on a pay-per-view basis, and she continued to give interviews about the artifact until her death in 2007.
The skull is made from a block of clear quartz about the size of a small human cranium, measuring some 5 inches (13 cm) high, 7 inches (18 cm) long and 5 inches wide. The lower jaw is detached. In the early 1970s it came under the temporary care of freelance art restorer Frank Dorland, who claimed upon inspecting it that it had been "carved" with total disregard to the natural crystal axes without the use of metal tools. Dorland reported being unable to find any tell-tale scratch marks, except for traces of mechanical grinding on the teeth, and he speculated that it was first chiseled into rough form, probably using diamonds, and the finer shaping, grinding and polishing was achieved through the use of sand over a period of 150 to 300 years. He said it could be up to 12,000 years old. Although various claims have been made over the years regarding the skull's physical properties, such as an allegedly constant temperature of 70 °F (21 °C), Dorland reported that there was no difference in properties between it and other natural quartz crystals.
While in Dorland's care the skull came to the attention of writer Richard Garvin, at the time working at an advertising agency where he supervised Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including...
's advertising account. Garvin made arrangements for the skull to be examined at HP's crystal labs at Santa Clara, where it was subjected to several tests. The labs determined only that it was not a composite (as Dorland had supposed), but that it was fashioned from a single crystal of quartz. The lab test also established that the lower jaw had been fashioned from the same left-handed growing crystal as the rest of the skull. No investigation was made by HP as to its method of manufacture or dating.
As well as the traces of mechanical grinding on the teeth noted by Dorland, Mayanist archaeologist Norman Hammond
Norman Hammond
Norman Hammond is a British archaeologist, academic and Mesoamericanist scholar, noted for his publications and research on the pre-Columbian Maya civilization. Educated at Peterhouse, Cambridge, Hammond is a professor in the Archaeology Department at Boston University's College of Arts and...
reported that the holes (presumed to be intended for support pegs) showed signs of being made by drilling with metal. Anna Mitchell-Hedges refused subsequent requests to submit the skull for further scientific testing.
F. A. Mitchell-Hedges mentioned the skull only briefly in the first edition of his autobiography, Danger My Ally (1954), without specifying where or by whom it was found. He merely claimed that "it is at least 3,600 years old and according to legend it was used by the High Priest of the Maya when he was performing esoteric rites. It is said that when he willed death with the help of the skull, death invariably followed". All subsequent editions of Danger My Ally omitted mention of the skull entirely.
Man (journal)
Man was a journal of anthropological research, published in London between 1901–1994 by the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. For first sixty-three volumes from its inception in 1901 up to 1963 it was issued on a monthly basis, moving to bi-monthly issue for the...
, where it is described as being in the possession of Mr. Sydney Burney
Sydney Burney
Sydney Burney was a 20th century art and antiquities dealer and collector based in London. He was responsible for organizing an exhibition of African art in 1933 in which African art was depicted as equal to the art of other cultures. He donated a limestone Etruscan urn to the British...
, a London art dealer who is said to have owned it since 1933. No mention was made of Mitchell-Hedges. There is documentary evidence that Mitchell-Hedges bought it from Burney in 1944. The skull was in the custody of Anna Mitchell-Hedges, the adopted daughter of Frederick. She steadfastly refused to let it be examined by experts (making very doubtful the claim that it was reported on by R. Stansmore Nutting in 1962). Somewhere between 1988–1990 Anna Mitchell-Hedges toured with the skull.
In her last eight years, Anna Mitchell-Hedges lived in Chesterton, Indiana
Chesterton, Indiana
Chesterton is a town in Westchester, Jackson and Liberty townships, Porter County, Indiana, United States. The population was 13,068 at the 2010 census. The three towns of Chesterton, Burns Harbor, and Porter are known as the tri-towns or the Duneland area....
, with Bill Homann, whom she married in 2002. She died on April 11, 2007. Since that time the Mitchell-Hedges Skull has been in the custody of Bill Homann. He continues to believe in its mystical properties.
British Museum skull
The crystal skull of the British MuseumBritish Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
first appeared in 1881, in the shop of the Paris antiquarian, Eugène Boban
Eugène Boban
Eugène Boban or Boban-Duvergé was a French antiquarian. He was the official archaeologist of the court of Maximillian I of Mexico, and a member of the French Scientific Commission in Mexico...
. Its origin was not stated in his catalog of the time. He is said to have tried to sell it to Mexico's national museum as an Aztec artifact, but was unsuccessful. Boban later moved his business to New York City, where the skull was sold to George H. Sisson
George H. Sisson
George H. Sisson was a nineteenth century American entrepreneur. He was born in Michigan, and was an early real estate developer in Chicago. He was a mining engineer in Arizona, and with his profits from that operation, purchased a large land concession in Baja California.-Baja California and...
. It was exhibited at the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
American Association for the Advancement of Science
The American Association for the Advancement of Science is an international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsibility, and supporting scientific education and science outreach for the...
in New York City in 1887 by George F. Kunz. It was sold at auction, and bought by Tiffany and Co., who later sold it at cost to the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
in 1897.
This skull is very similar to the Mitchell-Hedges skull, although it is less detailed and does not have a movable lower jaw.
The British Museum catalogues the skull's provenance
Provenance
Provenance, from the French provenir, "to come from", refers to the chronology of the ownership or location of an historical object. The term was originally mostly used for works of art, but is now used in similar senses in a wide range of fields, including science and computing...
as "probably European, 19th century AD" and describes it as "not an authentic pre-Columbian artefact".
It has been established that this skull was made with modern tools, and that it is not authentic.
Paris skull
Musée du quai Branly
thumb|225px|Musée du quai BranlyThe Musée du quai Branly , known in English as the Quai Branly Museum, nicknamed MQB, is a museum in Paris, France that features indigenous art, cultures and civilizations from Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas. The museum is located at 37, quai Branly -...
, and was subjected to scientific tests carried out in 2007–08 by France's national Centre de recherche et de restauration des musées de France
Centre de recherche et de restauration des musées de France
The Centre for Research and Restoration of the Museums of France is the national research centre in France responsible for the documentation, conservation and restoration of the items held in the collections of more than 1,200 museums across France...
(Centre for Research and Restoration of the Museums in France, or C2RMF). After a series of analyses carried out over three months, C2RMF engineers concluded that it was "certainly not pre-Columbian, it shows traces of polishing and abrasion by modern tools." Particle accelerator tests also revealed occluded traces of water that were dated to the 19th century, and the Quai Branly released a statement that the tests "seem to indicate that it was made late in the 19th century."
In 2009 the C2RMF researchers published results of further investigations to establish when the Paris skull had been carved. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis indicated the use of lapidary
Lapidary
A lapidary is an artist or artisan who forms stone, mineral, gemstones, and other suitably durable materials into decorative items such as engraved gems, including cameos, or cabochons, and faceted designs...
machine tools in its carving. The results of a new dating technique known as quartz hydration dating (QHD) demonstrated that the Paris skull had been carved later than a reference quartz specimen artifact, known to have been cut in 1740. The researchers conclude that the SEM and QHD results combined with the skull's known provenance indicate it was carved in the 18th or 19th century.
Smithsonian Skull
The "Smithsonian Skull", which is Catalogue No. A562841-0 in the collections of the Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural HistoryNational Museum of Natural History
The National Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. Admission is free and the museum is open 364 days a year....
, was mailed to the Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
anonymously in 1992, and was claimed to be an Aztec
Aztec
The Aztec people were certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, a period referred to as the late post-classic period in Mesoamerican chronology.Aztec is the...
object by its donor and was purportedly from the collection of Porfirio Diaz
Porfirio Díaz
José de la Cruz Porfirio Díaz Mori was a Mexican-American War volunteer and French intervention hero, an accomplished general and the President of Mexico continuously from 1876 to 1911, with the exception of a brief term in 1876 when he left Juan N...
. It is the largest of the skulls, weighing 31 pounds (14.1 kg) and is 15 inches (38.1 cm) high. It was carved using carborundum
Silicon carbide
Silicon carbide , also known as carborundum, is a compound of silicon and carbon with chemical formula SiC. It occurs in nature as the extremely rare mineral moissanite. Silicon carbide powder has been mass-produced since 1893 for use as an abrasive...
, a modern abrasive. It has been displayed as a fake at the National Museum of Natural History
National Museum of Natural History
The National Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. Admission is free and the museum is open 364 days a year....
.
Paranormal claims and spiritual associations
Some believers in the paranormal claim that crystal skulls can produce a variety of miracles. Ann Mitchell-Hedges claimed that the skull she allegedly discovered could cause visions, cure cancerCancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
, that she once used its magical properties to kill a man, and that in another instance, she saw in it a premonition of the John F. Kennedy assassination
John F. Kennedy assassination
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, was assassinated at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas...
.
In the 1931 play The Satin Slipper by Paul Claudel
Paul Claudel
Paul Claudel was a French poet, dramatist and diplomat, and the younger brother of the sculptor Camille Claudel. He was most famous for his verse dramas, which often convey his devout Catholicism.-Life:...
, King Philip II of Spain uses "a death's head made from a single piece of rock crystal," lit by "a ray of the setting sun," to see the defeat of his Armada in its attack on England (day 4, scene 4, pp. 243–44).
Claims of the healing and supernatural
Supernatural
The supernatural or is that which is not subject to the laws of nature, or more figuratively, that which is said to exist above and beyond nature...
powers of crystal skulls have no support in the scientific community, which has found no evidence of any unusual phenomena associated with the skulls nor any reason for further investigation, other than the confirmation of their provenance and method of manufacture.
Another novel and historically unfounded speculation ties in the legend of the crystal skulls with the completion of the current Maya calendar
Maya calendar
The Maya calendar is a system of calendars and almanacs used in the Maya civilization of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, and in many modern Maya communities in highland Guatemala. and in Chiapas....
b'ak'tun-cycle on December 21, 2012, claiming the re-uniting of the thirteen mystical skulls will forestall a catastrophe allegedly predicted or implied by the ending of this calendar. An airing of this claim appeared (among an assortment of others made) in The Mystery of the Crystal Skulls, a 2008 program produced for the Sci Fi Channel
Syfy
Syfy , formerly known as the Sci-Fi Channel and SCI FI, is an American cable television channel featuring science fiction, supernatural, fantasy, reality, paranormal, wrestling, and horror programming. Launched on September 24, 1992, it is part of the entertainment conglomerate NBCUniversal, a...
in May and shown on Discovery Channel Canada in June. Interviewees included Richard Hoagland
Richard C. Hoagland
Richard Charles Hoagland, is an American author and a proponent of various conspiracy theories about NASA, lost alien civilizations on the Moon and on Mars and other related topics....
, who attempted to link the skulls and the Maya to life on Mars, and David Hatcher Childress
David Hatcher Childress
David Hatcher Childress is an American author and publisher of books on topics on alternative history and historical revisionism. His works cover such subjects as pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact, Atlantis, Lemuria, Ancient Astronauts, UFOs, Nikola Tesla, the Knights Templar, lost cities and...
, proponent of lost Atlantean civilizations and anti-gravity claims.
Crystal skulls are also referenced by author Drunvalo Melchizedek
Drunvalo Melchizedek
Drunvalo Melchizedek is an author and spiritual teacher, who lives in Sedona, Arizona. Drunvalo completed most of a Basic degree in Physics and Mathematics before switching to a fine arts degree which he was awarded in 1970...
in his book Serpent of Light. He writes that he came across indigenous Mayan descendants in possession of crystal skulls at ceremonies at temples in the Yucatán, which he writes contained souls of ancient Mayans who had entered the skulls to await the time when their ancient knowledge would once again be required.
The alleged associations and origins of crystal skull mythology in Native American spiritual lore, as advanced by neoshamanic
Neoshamanism
Neoshamanism is a term signaling a "new" form or a revival of an old form of "shamanism", a system that comprises a range of beliefs and practices concerned with communication with the spiritual world....
writers such as Jamie Sams, are similarly discounted. Instead, as Philip Jenkins
Philip Jenkins
Philip Jenkins is as of 2010 the Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Humanities at Pennsylvania State University . He was Professor and a Distinguished Professor of History and Religious studies at the same institution; and also assistant, associate and then full professor of Criminal Justice and...
notes, crystal skull mythology may be traced back to the "baroque legends" initially spread by F.A. Mitchell-Hedges, and then afterwards taken up:
By the 1970s, the crystal skulls [had] entered New Age mythology as potent relics of ancient Atlantis, and they even acquired a canonical number: there were exactly thirteen skulls.
None of this would have anything to do with North American Indian matters, if the skulls had not attracted the attention of some of the most active New Age writers.
Crystal skulls in popular culture
- For the Love of GodFor the Love of GodFor the Love of God is a sculpture by artist Damien Hirst produced in 2007. It consists of a platinum cast of a human skull encrusted with 8,601 flawless diamonds, including a pear-shaped pink diamond located in the forehead...
, a diamond-encrusted skull made by artist Damien HirstDamien HirstDamien Steven Hirst is an English artist, entrepreneur and art collector. He is the most prominent member of the group known as the Young British Artists , who dominated the art scene in Britain during the 1990s. He is internationally renowned, and is reportedly Britain's richest living artist,...
. - Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, film that revolves around a fictional back-story to the lore of crystal skulls.
- Legend of the Crystal SkullLegend of the Crystal SkullLegend of the Crystal Skull is the seventeenth installment in the Nancy Drew computer games series created by Her Interactive. Nancy goes to New Orleans with Bess and to check on a friend of Ned's, Henry Bolet, Jr and becomes entangled in the legend of Crystal Skull- Plot :While in New Orleans on...
, video game which involves searching for a lost crystal skull. - Crystal Skull, Episode 21 of Season 3 of Stargate SG-1Stargate SG-1Stargate SG-1 is a Canadian-American adventure and military science fiction television series and part of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Stargate franchise. The show, created by Brad Wright and Jonathan Glassner, is based on the 1994 feature film Stargate by Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich...
, involving a crystal skull found by the SG-1 team in an alien cavern. - Crystal Skulls are said to be used, in the Assassin's CreedAssassin's CreedAssassin's Creed is an award-winning historical third person, stealth action-adventure video game developed by Ubisoft for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows. The bulk of the game takes place during the Third Crusade, with the plot revolving around a sect known as the Secret Order of...
series, to communicate telepathically between other holders of the skulls.
External links
- Real Science monograph on examinations of both the BM & BH skulls
- skepdic.com: crystalskull
- Mitchell-Hedges Official website Biography of Anna Mitchell-Hedges and account of the discovery of the skull.
- Modern Day Fake Crystal Skulls
- The Magic of Crystal Skulls - Legend of the 13 - 10:10 Event – roundtable discussion about crystal skulls in connection with the forthcoming October 9–10, 2010 Crystall Skull Events in New York City.
- The Crystal Skull of Doom Critical look at the Mitchell Hedges Skull and other crystal skulls.
- Ancient Mexico, Hollywood and the French Connection