The Crystal Skull: A Mystery and Controversy - Temples Zone
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Galleries Main Gallery Cambodia Angkor Wat Temple Prasat Bayon Temple Ta Prohm Temple India Amer Fort Bhangarh Fort Chand Baori Stepwell Chaturbhuj Temple City Palace Hawa Mahal Jal Mahal Khajuraho Monuments Orchha Fort Complex Ranthambore Fort Sri Harmandir Sahib Taj Mahal Indonesia Borobudur Temple Gunung Padang Megalith Lawang Sewu Prambanan Temple Ratu Boko Palace Sewu Temple Tugu Gede Megalith Vihara Buddhagaya Watugong Yogyakarta Myanmar Dhammayangyi Temple Einyakyaungngamyethna Temple Gu Taw Thit Temple Minnanthu Temples Complex Sein Nyet Ama Temple Shin Yae Tahtaung Temple Shwezigon Pagoda Sin Myar Shin Sitana Gyi Hpaya Thitsarwadi Temple Thailand Bangkok Grand Palace Big Buddha Wat Bang Phli Yai Klang Wat Chaiwatthanaram Wat Chong Nonsi Wat Lokayasutharam Wat Mahabut Wat Mahathat Wat Pho Wat Phu Khao Thong Wat Ratchaburana Contributors Videos
Main Gallery Cambodia Angkor Wat Temple Prasat Bayon Temple Ta Prohm Temple India Amer Fort Bhangarh Fort Chand Baori Stepwell Chaturbhuj Temple City Palace Hawa Mahal Jal Mahal Khajuraho Monuments Orchha Fort Complex Ranthambore Fort Sri Harmandir Sahib Taj Mahal Indonesia Borobudur Temple Gunung Padang Megalith Lawang Sewu Prambanan Temple Ratu Boko Palace Sewu Temple Tugu Gede Megalith Vihara Buddhagaya Watugong Yogyakarta Myanmar Dhammayangyi Temple Einyakyaungngamyethna Temple Gu Taw Thit Temple Minnanthu Temples Complex Sein Nyet Ama Temple Shin Yae Tahtaung Temple Shwezigon Pagoda Sin Myar Shin Sitana Gyi Hpaya Thitsarwadi Temple Thailand Bangkok Grand Palace Big Buddha Wat Bang Phli Yai Klang Wat Chaiwatthanaram Wat Chong Nonsi Wat Lokayasutharam Wat Mahabut Wat Mahathat Wat Pho Wat Phu Khao Thong Wat Ratchaburana
India Amer Fort Bhangarh Fort Chand Baori Stepwell Chaturbhuj Temple City Palace Hawa Mahal Jal Mahal Khajuraho Monuments Orchha Fort Complex Ranthambore Fort Sri Harmandir Sahib Taj Mahal
By Roy Singh
November 12, 2017
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One of the claims at the Mitchell Hedges website is that it’s impossible to replicate even with modern machinery. So, Nat Geo contracted Barry Liu owner of Skullis to have a go at making a replica, and they managed to make a replica in 8 days.
Next Dr John Morris at Institute of Archaeology, Belize had a look at the skull and came to the conclusion that it had no similarities with Mayan art and that it didn’t look like any other skull found in that part of the world in pre-Columbian times. He explains that in an attempt to find out the exact location where Anna Mitchell-Hedges claimed to have found the skull in 1927 they re-mapped the site, but they couldn’t find any of the tunnels or passages she described.
Norman Hammond (academic and Mesoamericanist scholar) says that Anna Mitchell-Hedges wasn’t even on the expedition in 1927 as she is not mentioned in any of the official logs or journals. There was also no record in anyone’s journals of the skull having being found at the time they say it was…
It seems that Mitchell-Hedges bought it at an auction from Sotheby’s, Burney, the UK in 1944, many years after the expedition to the temple in Lubaantun. A copy of the Sotheby’s catalogue has been discovered.
The crystal skull in the British Museum first appeared in 1881, in a shop of Paris antiquarian, Eugène Boban. The British Museum later purchased this skull from Tiffany and Co., New York in 1897. Tiffany and Co. had previously purchased it from George H. Sisson a nineteenth-century American entrepreneur in New York at an auction. So, it seems that Mr Sisson had purchased this skull sometime after Eugène Boban moved to New York. The skull was exhibited for many years at the Museum of Mankind in Piccadilly (which housed British Museum’s Ethnographic collection), it is currently on permanent display at the British Museum in the Wellcome Trust Gallery. The British Museum has examined the skull several times between 1950 and 1990.
In 1996, a collaborative project focusing on British Museum’s skull and a skull in the collection of the Smithsonian Institute, Washington DC was started. Contrary to popular belief, there are no satisfactory scientific techniques which can be used to accurately establish when a stone object was carved.
Research has therefore focused on how the skulls were carved, where the quartz originated from and what is known about the early history of the skulls. Observations made with a binocular microscope and in a scanning electron microscope show that the techniques used to carve the skulls postdate the ancient Aztec period.
The tool marks on the skulls are very different from those of ancient Mexican rock crystal objects, which were carved by hand. The British Museum skull was extensively worked with lathe-mounted rotary wheels (jeweller’s wheels), which were unknown in the Americas before the arrival of the Europeans. The research also shows that the large block of rock crystal suitable for the British Museum skull did not come from a source within the ancient trade network of Mexico. It is likely to have originated from a source in Brazil or Madagascar. The results of this research have been published in the Journal of Archaeological Science and are available online: Sax, M., Walsh, J.M., Freestone, I.C., Rankin, A.H. and Meeks, N.D., Journal of Archaeological Science (2008) .
Another crystal skull sold by Eugène Boban to Alphonse Pinart is known to be the largest of these three skulls. It’s about 10 cm (4 in) high, has a hole drilled vertically through its centre there are assumptions that it may have been on a staff, and later perhaps on a cross. It’s 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 (Center for Research and Restoration of the Museums in France, or C2RMF). 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 “Smithsonian Skull”, Catalogue No. A562841-0 in the collections of the Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, was claimed to be an Aztec object and was purportedly from Porfirio Diaz’s collection. It is the largest of the skulls, weighing 31 pounds (ca. 14 kg) and is 15 inches (ca. 38 cm) high. It was carved using carborundum, a modern abrasive. It has been displayed as a modern fake at the National Museum of Natural History.
In 1992, according to anthropologist Jane MacLaren Walsh of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History (NMNH), the museum received an unsolicited donation of a larger-than-life, ten-inch-high skull carved from milky-hued quartz. Sometimes later, Walsh, an expert in Mexican archaeology, was asked to research the skull, one of the several known to exist. Until that point, skulls of this kind typically had been attributed to ancient Mesoamerican cultures.
Walsh knew that if the skull proved to be a genuine pre-Columbian relic, it would constitute an important addition to the Smithsonian collection. But she harboured doubts from the start. “After Mexican independence,” she says, “a lot of outsiders started coming into the country and collecting historic pieces for museums.” The collectors, she adds, “created a demand, and local artisans then created a supply. Some of the things sold to these foreigners may not have been made to intentionally deceive, but certain dealers claimed that they were ancient.” Walsh thinks that the Smithsonian skull was carved in Mexico in the 1950s.
Boban, a gentleman of dubious reputation, lived in the 19th century and seems to be associated with the appearance of both skulls as well as with a third skull now at the Musee de l’Homme in Paris. Boban operated business in Mexico for some years that traded in artifacts. Apparently it was Boban that sold the British skull to Tiffany’s. Instead of obtaining the skulls in Mexico, however, it is thought he got them from Germany where they were carved during the 19th century. During that period large amounts of Brazilian quartz crystal were imported and shaped there.
There is certainly evidence that supports the idea that both the skulls came from the same source. One scientist, Dr G. M. Morant, got to examine what is thought to be the Mitchell-Hedges skull (then in Burney’s hands) and the British skull together in 1936. He noted the skulls were very similar in many anatomical details. It was his theory that the one in the British Museum might be a slightly rougher copy of the Mitchell-Hedges skull.
Despite their suspicions, neither Morant nor later Freestone, has been able to definitely establish a time or place where either of these skulls was created. So, many people continue to attribute them with ancient origins and remarkable powers. Even if they lack paranormal capabilities, however, they remain fascinating oddities set in crystal stone.
Stories about the skulls focus heavily on their perceived supernatural powers. Joshua Shapiro, the co-author of Mysteries of the Crystal Skulls Revealed , cites claims of healing and expanded psychic abilities from people who have been in the presence of such skulls.
“We believe the Crystal Skulls is a form of computer which are able to record energy and vibration that occur around them,” he writes. ” The skull will pictorially replay all events or images of the people who have come into contact with them (i.e. they contain the history of our world).”
Most archaeologists and scientists are sceptical, to say the least. Skulls were prominent in ancient Mesoamerican artwork, particularly among the Aztec, so the connection between these artifacts and these civilizations is apt.
“It was a symbol of regeneration,” says Michael Smith, a professor of anthropology at Arizona State University. “There were several Aztec gods that were represented by skulls, so they were probably invoking these gods. I don’t think they were supposed to have specific powers or anything like that.”
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