MAN: A morphological comparison of two crystal skulls

MAN
A monthly record of Anthropological science
Vol. XXXVI
July 1936
Nos. 142-178

Contents

Plate I-J. Crystal skulls

ORIGINAL ARTICLES:
142. A morphological comparison of two crystal skulls. G.M. Morant. With Plate I-J and Illustrations.
143. Comments on the morphological comparison of two crystal skulls. Adrian Digby
144. Two crystal skulls: Dr. Morant’s reply to Mr. Digby’s comments
145. Two crystal skulls: Further comments by H.J. Braunholtz

A morphological comparison of two crystal skulls

By G. M. Morant

142 It appears that there are only two life-size representations of the human skull in rock-crystal known to be in existence. One of these is preserved in the Department of Ethnography of the British Museum and the other is in the possession of Mr. Sydney Burney. The following note concerns a comparison of the two specimens considered solely from a morphological point of view. The writer is indebted to Captain T. A. Joyce and to Mr. Burney for permission to handle and measure the precious objects and for the photographs here reproduced.
The right-profile and full-face photographs (Plate I-J and Fig. 1) convey an excellent impression of their general appearance. Identical or closely similar features which may be noted are almost perfect bilateral symmetry, the absence of any indication of sutures, the almost complete absence of a glabellar prominence or superciliary ridges (this and other characters suggesting femaleness in both cases), the slight curvature of the median sagittal sections of the vault and occiput, and the absence of any indication of the position of the lambda. The median section of the frontal region of the Burney specimen is rather more protruding than that of the other, but there is not the slightest suggestion in either case that the skull (or skulls) copied was artificially deformed. Seen from the front the brain-boxes appear well-filled, but not unnaturally so. Other unusual features common to the two specimens are the unnatural straightness of the median sections of the facial skeletons, the prominence of the anterior nasal spines, and the verticality of the rami of the mandibles seen from in front. The minimum breadths of the rami in both cases are found as low down as possible, so that one terminal of the measurement is at the angle (gonion). This last feature is quite exceptional, but mandibles exhibiting it are occasionally found in long series.
The only marked differences between the crystals are observed in the conformation of the facial and basal regions. The British Museum skull is in one piece, but the Burney has the lower jaw detached. The former has unnaturally round orbits and little attempt was made to excavate the zygomatic arches or mastoid processes; the latter indicates all these features in a far more natural way. The dentitions are indicated as complete in both cases, and practically no attempt was made to show the shapes of different teeth, though in this respect, also, the Burney skull is more life-like than the other. In a word, the facial part of the British Museum specimen is a crude representation, and that of the Burney crystal was far more successful judged from an anatomical point of view. A circular depression on the base of the former indicates the position of the foramen magnum, but apart from this no attempt was made in either case to show any details in the basal region.
Owing to the absence of sutures, few of the usual measurements can be taken at all accurately. The most reliable ones are for the glabellar-occipital length 177, 174 (the reading for the British Museum specimen being given first); maximum calvarial breadth 135,140; cephalic index 76-3, 80-5 ; bizygomatic breadth 117, 117; nasal breadth 22, 24; breadth of left orbit 34-5, 37-5; height of left orbit 37, 33-5; left orbital index 107-2, 89-3. No one of these measurements would be at all exceptional for an actual skull except the orbital index for the British Museum specimen which appears to be slightly removed from the human range for this character. At the same time the other measurements are in remarkably close accordance. A more interesting comparison can be made by superposing the outlines. The lateral photograph of the British Museum crystal (Plate I-J A) shows the right profile exactly. That of the Burney specimen (B) on the same plate is not a perfectly true profile view as both mastoid processes and both sides of the nasal aperture can be seen, but the divergence from the norma lateralis is only slight. These photographs were copied and enlarged prints of each made exactly natural size. Tracings of the outlines and a few other lines which could be easily seen were then made and superposed, the result being given in Fig. 2A. The method of superposing the tracings to give the best agreement was clearly to place one Outline of the facial skeleton on top of the other as these two are almost identical. The outlines of the brain-boxes then diverge to an appreciable extent, but certainly not more than would those of two female skulls picked at random from a series representing a single race. The margins of the orbits are not far apart and marked divergence is only found between the two pairs of lilies representing the zygomatic arches. A diagram showing the superposed natural size tracings derived from the full-face photographs Fig. 1 A-B is not given as it would be misleading to some extent. Both show full-face views almost exactly, but to correspond with the superposition made in Fig 2A the British Museum specimen should show less of the cranial vault than the other does, and it actually shows more. The photographs available are sufficiently close to the ideal ones, however, to make it possible to say that the following relations would be found from enlargements obtained from the latter; the outlines of the lower jaws, the teeth lines and the nasal apertures would be practically coincident; the breadth at the zygomatic arches would be identical, but the difference in the forms of the arches would again be apparent; immediately above them the outline of the Burney skull would fall outside the other (to the extent of about 2 mm. on either side), but they would then approach again until close to the vaults where the slight difference in height would again become apparent; finally, the orbits would be seen to be higher in the Burney specimen. The close correspondence between the two outlines is again remarkable.

The above comparison makes it impossible to avoid the conclusion that the crystal skulls are not of independent origin. It is almost inconceivable that two artificers, having no connection with one another, and using different human skulls as models, should have produced specimens so closely similar in form as these two are. In the writers opinion it is safe to conclude that they are representations of the same human skull, though one may have been copied from the other. The only essential differences between them are clearly due to the fact that in fashioning the Burney crystal care was taken to make some features, which are crudely modelled in the other, more life-like, as in making the lower jaw separate and giving the orbits, zygomatic arches and mastoid processes the similitude of their natural forms. Ethnologists would probably suggest that if one was copied from the other then the more finished is the later, but it is not easy to accept this explanation. We may suppose that the British Museum specimen was modelled from a human skull, and that at some later date the original crystal was copied by another craftsman who used another human skull to guide him in making some features more realistic. But this craftsman must be credited with some knowledge of anatomy, for otherwise the substitution of a false model for the real one would have been very likely to lead to some anatomical abnormalities in his product, although none are actually observed. No decisive answer can be given to questions of this kind, but, whatever the relation between the two artefacts may be, it is practically certain that they are primarily derived, directly or indirectly, from a single human prototype. The question of what race this belonged to is also one which cannot be answered decisively. Comparisons between Fig. 2A and type contours available for English cranial series suggests that it was as orthognathous, or more orthognathous, than the average European cranium. An American Indian skull would be expected to have more projecting jaws, and a broader and higher facial skeleton. Intra-racial variation is so great, however, that it would be rash to assert that an American Indian could not have possessed the skull which was copied.

Comments on the morphological comparison of two crystal skulls

By Adrian Digby, British Museum

143 Dr. Morant’s morphological comparison of 11U the two skulls is of considerable interest, and while any suggestions which may be made are of necessity speculative, it is interesting to consider the implications of Dr. Morant’s opinion that both models are related in so far as they are ultimately based on the same original. Three possibilities are open to us. First, that both models were made at some time directly from the original postulated by Dr. Morant. Secondly, that the Burney skull was made directly from the original and that at a later date the British Museum specimen was copied from it by a man knowing considerably less anatomy than the maker of the Burney skull. The third explanation, which is favoured by Dr. Morant, is that the Museum skull was copied from an original skull and that at a later date the Burney skull was a sort of composite copy relying for its proportions on the skull now in the Museum and for its anatomical detail on some human skull in the possession of the carver.
Each of these hypotheses is open to grave difficulties. If it is assumed that both models are modelled directly from the same original why is there so much difference between the two? The stylized Museum specimen with the lower jaw carved integrally would hardly be the work of the same man who produced Mr. Burney’s accurate model. Also it is probable from the stylistic differences that they are not contemporary. This means that the original 4 source ‘ skull was a particularly important skull, probably belonging to a culture hero or warrior, a ‘ Museum piece,’ as it were, to which various craftsmen would have access, or alternatively that the skull was the property of a particular family of craftsmen, and that one model was made by a descendant of the maker of the other. Dr. Morant draws particular attention to the feminine or infantile characteristics of both skulls; so it is unlikely that the model is based on a ‘ Museum piece,’ for such a skull would almost certainty be a representation of the deathgod, a male character, or of a warrior. But the writer can conceive no other set of circumstances which would, without the use of pure coincidence, account for different craftsmen at different times having access to the same original.
The technique will not help us to settle their relative ages for in neither case is there any trace of identifiable tool marks, and it is certain that neither specimen was made with steel tools. On the teeth there is no trace of a lapidary’s wheel which would betray one or both specimens as being of comparatively modern origin. But the other crystal skulls, notably the specimen in the Trocadero Museum (G. F. Kuntz, ‘Gems and ‘Precious Stones of North America’), and a miniature specimen in the British Museum, not only have the lower jaw carved integrally with the rest, but the partly conventional circular drillings for the eyes are found more nearly akin to the British Museum specimen than to Mr. Burney’s.
The second suggestion, that the British Museum skull is derived from (one might almost say descended from) the Burney skull is not impossible. Prof. Balfour has frequently demonstrated the process of evolution or degeneration which can occur when a design is copied by different people. On these grounds it would be quite possible to argue that since the British Museum crystal skull resembles its ‘ ancestor ‘ less than Mr. Burney’s resembles the same ‘ ancestor,’ it must be a more distant relation as it were.
But we must remember that the Museum skull is more like the other known specimens, especially about the jaw and zygomatic arches, and therefore more likely to date from Mexican times than Mr. Burney’s. This last fact favours the view that Mr. Burney’s skull is, as it were, the offspring of the Museum skull, and a real skull in which the profile of the Museum skull has been preserved, but improved on by a later artist’s observations of a real skull. This of course is possible, but it is extraordinary that anybody wishing to carve a skull out of rock crystal, and taking a real skull as his model should modify its dimensions to fit those of another crystal skull which he would see was but a poor copy of nature. It shows a perverted ingenuity such as one would expect to find in a forger, but Mr. Burney’s skull bears no traces of recent (metal age) workmanship; so this suggestion may almost certainly be dismissed.
There are large objections to each of the three explanations of the similarity between the two skulls, and it is very hard to agree that with Dr. Morant’s view both skulls are related. It is only with great trepidation that I venture to disagree with such a distinguished anthropologist as Dr. Morant, but technological considerations make it very hard to agree with him.
Dr. Morant’s comparison is very impressive, especially his superimposed plan (Fig. 2A), but-one of the difficulties which must have faced Dr. Morant has been the difficulty of orientating the two crystal skulls in exactly the same plane. There do not seem to be any key points which will aid in orientating the two skulls on the Frankfort plane or Thompson’s plane. The only alternative was to superimpose the two profiles and orientate them until they seemed most nearly coincided. Dr. Morant has done this, paying particular attention to the facial regions. This makes the frontal portion of Mr. Burney’s skull higher than that of the Museum specimen, and the basal regions lower. If, instead, two profiles are superimposed (Fig. 2B.) So that the two outlines of the brain-box portion of the skull coincide as nearly as possible it will be found that the lower portions of the zygomatic arches are more nearly parallel (though that of the Burney skull appears slightly below that of the Museum skull instead of slightly above it), and the face becomes slightly more orthognathous, and therefore slightly more European in type than the Museum specimen. This is all in accordance with the deductions which are to be drawn from general appearance of the two skulls. It would, however, be extremely rash to suggest that either skull was of European rather than Mexican manufacture.
Until further evidence is available on the whole subject of crystal skulls no definite conclusions can be reached, and in spite of the remarkable similarity of outline which Dr. Morant has demonstrated, it still appears unwise to assume that the two skulls are based on the same original.

Two crystal skulls. Dr. Morant’s Reply to Mr. Digby’s Comments.

144 Mr. Digby allows me to comment on his remarks relating to the way in which the outlines of the two specimens are superposed in Fig. 2A. It seems to me that there is full justification in such a case for arguing from the relations found when the best possible fit has been obtained, without regard to any arbitrary plane of the skull. This appears to be the one shown when account is taken of both facial and calvarial outlines. If the calvarial are considered alone a rotation of one might be considered to give a rather better agreement, though the regions of the nasal bridges and the facial outlines will then diverge markedly. The remarkable resemblance between the median outlines of the facial skeletons seems to be quite sufficient in itself to indicate that there is a direct relation between the two ’skulls.’ If one was copied from the other, than it may well be that this part was copied first and that the shape of the remainder of the block of crystal did not permit as exact a reproduction of the form of the brain-box.

Two crystal skulls. Further Comments by H.J. Braunholtz, British Museum

145 The B.M. skull is definitely far more ‘coventionalized’ than the Burney specimen. The cranium has a perfectly smooth contour, the eyes are circular, and the teeth merely indicated. These peculiarities are in accordance with the general character of ancient Mexican art; It would be hard to quote a single specimen in which anatomical detail is fully and faithfully recorded without some degree of ‘stylization.’ This is particularly the case with the Aztec stone masks and figures of deities, most of which are highly conventional.
On the other hand, the Burney skull pays considerable attention to the correct rendering of detail; minor protuberances on the- cranium are carefully modelled; as Dr. Morant points out, the orbits approximate to nature. Such realism seems beyond the ordinary range of Aztec art, and gives the skull the character almost of an anatomical study in a scientific age.
In any comparison of these two skulls, this difference of spirit seems to me to be a crucial factor, and one which should be given full weight in drawing conclusions.

[Show as slideshow]

Vatican Returns the Holy Icon back to Russia

In 2003 I wrote these words: “Mine is the first cry… Yours can be a shout and eventually the misappropriation and injustice can become a rectified restoration of the freedom of the people’s right to view ‘THEIR HOLY ICON.”

I could not believe back in 2003 that a year later in 2004 on August 28th my dream came true. It was a very emotional day for me and I wish with all my heart I could have been present to see this wonderful event. My father would have been very proud… all through his life he acquired many wonderful treasures and it was his wish to have such treasures restored back to the rightful owners… this is but one of them.

This Icon represents to its people the restoration of hope and freedom… and all through my life I have advocated such notions that all people are born free and need from time to time to be able to see the very iconic symbols that enables them to feel that freedom of love.

And so with the Crystal Skull which my father called The Skull of Doom… I prefer to call it The Skull of Love and in its own way it has restored many people’s faith in themselves… I wish now that in the future that it is used for such purposes and the all those will marvel at it beauty and craftsmanship.

28th August 2004

The image is an 18th-Century copy of one of Russia’s most sacred images, the Virgin of Kazan, and was bought in the West by Roman Catholics in 1970.

Revered Marian icon returns to Russia

Fatima group plays key role in ecumenical gesture
By CINDY WOODEN
Catholic News Service
Vatican City

30th August 2004

The dream of a papal trip has been set aside, replaced by fervent prayers for better relations between Catholics and Russian Orthodox.

Anna’s words

Now that the Ikon has been handed back to its rightful place … I do hope that one day I will be invited to go to Russia and to see this wonderful treasure again … I will take with me the Crystal Skull as when we lived in Farley Castle and at Shaldon House they were always together.

Anna (Sammy) passed away 11th April 2007 not realising her dream but the notions are always present to make such a dream come true.

The Keeper Of The Skull: A Visit With Anna Mitchell-Hedges

This interview with Anna Mitchell-Hedges and Cynthia Cobles occurred in two parts. The first, during April of 1983, was with myself, Auriloitha, and Dr. Dan Baer present. The second, in November of 1983, was with myself and my wife Maureen present.
Anna, nicknamed “Sammy” by her father, British explorer F.A. “Mike” Mitchell-Hedges, and Cynthia, Mr. Mitchell-Kedges secretary at the time of his death, extended to us a wonderful sense of warmth and hospitality. They opened up their home to us, and we sincerely thank them for their kindness and cooperation, for which they asked nothing in return.
MDM

April 1983

Dan: They’re opening up a new Mayan cave in Guatemala, and it’s not very far from Lubaantun. I’m hoping they may find some leads there. If there was one skull, I suspect there might be others of some form.
Anna: Well, there’s one in the British Museum, but its solid, the jaw does not open.
D: What do you think its purpose was, the way they cut it?
A: So it would talk. The Mayans were very intelligent people. And there’s a smaller one in Paris, in the Louvre.
D: Now you say you think it was previous to the Mayans?
A: Previous to the Mayans, yes. With the research they did in California they say it’s over 12,000 years old. And we heard Carol (a psychic) say it was over 16,000 years old, and was used pre-Mayan.
Cynthia: She said it was in Atlantis, …
A: …and she says that we were part of the council.
C: She was in a trance when she said this.
Mark: So it’s come back to you.
A: That’s right.
H: Anna, did you people name Lubaantun, or is that what you later heard it was called?
A: No, my father named it, and in Maya language it is “the place of the fallen stones.”
M: Did you ever hear of any undiscovered races down there, there are supposed to be some very short people, and the sisimotos (Bigfoot-type creatures)?
A: In some of the Bay Islands of Honduras, near Bonacca, no white man could go there. Only my father was allowed in, and I had some materials, clothes and the like, and it took me about three or four days for them to allow me to come on shore, and I had to show his photograph before they’d let me.
M: And this was the pygmies?
A: Yes.
D: Your father had some feelings about Atlantis didn’t he?
A: Oh yes, he felt that the skull was of Atlantis.
D: How old was he when he died?
A: 75.
D: Well tell us about this film, you say its about his life; was it more focussed on the early part of his life?
A: The early part of his life, and then the Crystal Skull came along.
D: You said some rather spectacular things came along?
A: It’s been very successful, apparently, in Vienna. They’re trying to sell it to America, but it has to be translated to English. They’re coming down here again to do another film. A professor in Vienna who does nothing but ‘crystals said he’s never seen anything like the Skull, that it’s not European, and that’s what they wanted to know, if it was European. I told them it wasn’t.
D: Can you tell what kind of person this was modelled on, what race of people?
A: As far as we know it was supposed to be a high priest. Father thought the building was for the high priest, and Maya came from all over to see the high priest, there, and that’s why the Skull was there.
M: In the psychic research you’ve accumulated over the years concerning this, how do they say it was brought to its present form?
A: We were told it was rubbed by sand, and was a huge piece of crystal. And the jaw was the same piece, and the research in California said the same thing.
M: The jaw was actually found later wasn’t it?
A: Three months later, yes.
D: Who found the jaw?
A: My father and I, we were all moving stones together, for we had realized that something was missing.
M: Could you explain what it was like when you found?
A: We stopped working, we got it, and we held it in our hands, and the Maya looked at it, and there were tears running down their faces, of joy, and some started dancing on the stones. My father gave it to the Maya priests there, because he said this was a religious piece and it belonged to them. In 1927, when we finished our expedition, they represented it to my father.
D: That’s quite a compliment.
A: Otherwise, if he had it at the time we had all the pottery and everything we would have turned it over to the museum. But this way it was given back to us to protect us.
D: Was there any problem getting it out of the country?
A: Oh well, it was very easy in those days.
D: Because, Mark, you mentioned that your friend Peter Harding was just down in Belize…
M: Yes, he wrote about that visit to Altun Ha in one of our past issues. He told me that the people down there would like the Skull back, have you heard that?
A: Somebody told me, but that’s all I’ve heard.
M: He had talked to people about the Skull.
C: Now Altun Ha, isn’t that where they found the jade skull?
M: Yes, that’s where they found the large jade skull. Of course, all of these countries would now like their artefacts back.
A: Oh yes, but at that time it was very easy to get them out. It got a bit tough in 1934, we were doing an expedition in the Bay Islands. We got them out just the same, amongst fishing tackle.
M: Your father was quite a big game fisherman and still holds many records, doesn’t he?
A: Yes, about 18 records, and he wrote a few books on this also.
M: Now the Bay Island named Bonacca, that was where your father discovered the long mound and monoliths?
A: Yes. The people were not very friendly there.
D: Are they Mayan?
A: There’s a mixture of Spanish, and they’re not very pleasant. Jane Houlson wrote something in Blue Blaze how the people eat with their fingers. Well, we always eat with our fingers if it’s chicken or the like, and we don’t think anything of it. But I was somewhat shocked when I went there later and some of the islanders said to me “Are you the lady from the Amigo? Well, we don’t eat with our fingers! We have forks and knives!” And I said, “No, I don’t write.”
M: When is your book going to be written?
A: It’s being worked on now.
M: Your father was an excellent writer, he presents a very exciting style of reading.
A: Yes, and he wasn’t very well when he wrote these.
D: Tell us about the events that led up to the finding of the Skull if you could.
A: Well, I was with a man cutting the trees down, and the sun was very hot that day, and something kept shining between stones, stones that were so high as this ceiling. I kept looking at that, and I asked one of the Maya “What’s down there?” I kept going back to it all the time. And when my father came back I showed him, and he got very curious, and then he got the men to move the stones.
M: There have been healings reportedly connected with the Skull.
A: Yes, we’ve had people from all over come just to be healed.
M: What type of healings have you had with the Skull?
A: We’ve had cancer, lupus, …
D: Did they actually touch the Skull?
A: Oh yes, they just put their hands on top. If you believe it, and trust the skull, then it gives you the power, but you have to believe that. If you don’t it won’t do any good at all.
M: It’s very interesting how this visit unfolded with us, because I wrote the article on the Skull to complement Bill Cox’s article in the Winter 1983 Univercolian, and then Dan came up to my house one evening to video tape a little discussion with me about the Skull for his class. And we found we couldn’t get it accomplished that night.
D: It seemed like there was something holding us back.
M: First, Dan kept mispronouncing my name during his intro, and it took us six or seven takes before he got it right. When we finally got that right, and Dan started asking me some questions, I opened my mouth to speak and nothing came out. When at last things got going, we conversed for about 30 minutes on the Skull, and felt we had a really good program. But when we played it back, we found that just as we started to speak about the Skull, a buzzing noise began and obliterated the audio for our entire conversation. We found we couldn’t duplicate this buzzing sound in subsequent tests, but by that one we’d said the hell with it for that night.
But somehow, all of these events, why we’re here today, happened very quickly.
It does very mysterious things. One doesn’t know why. If it doesn’t want people to know anything about it, it just cuts right out.
D: How do you feel having the Skull has changed or affected your life?
A: Well I’ve been protected. I was adopted. My father was an Englishman and I’m French, and how he would adopt a French girl I don’t know.
Some people see all sorts of images the Skull. Fish, birds,…
D: How many teeth are there in the skull?
A: The same as ours. These were taken from a photograph that was in the newspaper. Do you see the Madonna?
D: Really! Oh, that’s very clear.
A: And see the fish in this picture!
D: Oh, yes.
D: Well, Garvin in his book (The Crystal Skull) had one that seemed to show the Sphinx in it.
A: Yes, everyday you see something different.
D: Now supposedly there are no tool marks on the Skull?
A: No. The California testing concluded that no tool was ever used, and even a, today, with all the tools they have, they couldn’t make this.
D: How about that!
A: The reason I let them do the research is because the people didn’t believe that it had been done by sand, etc., and all hand done, and it took 150 years to rub down. And they had to have been related to the high priest, five generations. That’s what the Maya told them.
D: Did the Maya that were with you at that time sense that it was part of their heritage?
A: Yes.
D: What is in store for the future of the skull?
A: Well I’m trying now to start a foundation to put the Skull in, because I don’t want to give it to a museum, because they don’t allow anybody to touch it.
M: Right, they’d just lock it up.
D: they would put it in a closet somewhere. They would control it then.
A: Well, the British Museum’s skull is dying, it’s not allowed to be touched, and it doesn’t get the air. When I did the film for the Yorkshire Television, they took the two skulls together, and I wanted to touch the British one and they said, “Don’t you dare.” and I said. “Well look at al the crew touching my Skull, I don’t mind,” and they said “Oh no, you mustn’t touch.” And I said “Your killing it, because you don’t touch it. The Skull needs touching.”
M: They wouldn’t understand that.
D: No, that’s museum people in general, they’re so overprotective.
A: And they know me, and they know my father gave them tons of stuff.
D: That’s outrageous. That’s an insult.
M: You know, I’ve had a very sore lower back lately, and especially after the nine hour ride here. But as soon as I touched the Skull, I could feel a warmth going right to that very spot. ‘
Aur: It seems to know where to go.
A: I’ve had people here who refused to touch it.
D: Really! Are they afraid of it?
A: Oh yes.
M: Do you have a name for the Skull?
A: I call it “Skull.”
M: Am I right in that you were interviewed by William Shatner for a movie entitled “Mystery of the Gods?”
A: Yes.
M: I saw that once when I was down in Florida, I believe in 1977, and I never even heard of it again. Do you know what happened to it?
C: Von Daniken claimed they changed it, and he rescinded the rights to it.
M: It was a very good movie, one of the best I’ve seen on that type of thing. That’s the first time I heard of the Skull.
Aur: You mean Captain Kirk?
A: Yes. I didn’t know he was coming. He was quite taken back when I didn’t know who he was. But an hour later we were talking French and everything was alright.
Aur: I would imagine that the Skull’s vibration affects you even if your not aware of it.
A: I know when I have a headache I put my head on the Skull and it’s gone in five minutes.
D: How many people were present when the Skull was found?
A: There was Lady Richmond Brown, myself, father, Tuk the painter. Dr. Gann.

November 1983

M: I guess the first thing I’d like to ask you, apparently I got, one of the dates wrong in the article I did on the Crystal Skull. Could you clear that up please?
A: We found the Crystal Skull in 1924, the first of January, on my seventeenth birthday, and father saw the excitement and the joy of the Maya people there, so he said, “I couldn’t take this away from them,” so he gave it to the Maya people there. And they set stones down, and put the Skull on them, and built a little thatch roof on top, palm leaves, and built a pier all around it, and Maya came from all over, people we never saw before. And in 1927, when we finished our expedition, the priests gave the skull back to my father, because he was a good man and brought good things for them. And that’s the way the Skull has been in our possession. Otherwise, if we took it in i1924, we would have had to give it to a museum, but this way it was a gift from the Maya to us, and it’s been our protector ever since.
M: We were talking earlier about flow some people had written that he had brought it down there and planted it…
A: That’s right, but I can’t imagine anybody spending 20,000 pounds for an expedition to bury a skull for his daughter to find it. In those days that was a lot of money.
M: Probably over 450,000 back then.
A: Yes.
M: You were tailing us about a crystal statue that you had seen in a cave down there…
A: Yes, in the islands, in the cliffs…
M: In the Bay Islands?
A: That’s one little thing, I cannot disclose where it is. It’s a promise I made to my father that I would never disclose it because, we didn’t know at the time the statue was cursed, but several people have died, bitten by tarantula spiders. It’s a breeding ground for tarantula spiders, and my father, when he learned of the curse, he blocked the cave up. And only God can spread the earth away, so one day it may come out.
M: You said the floor was like a moving mass…
A: Like a beautiful black carpet, it just moved and it would fascinate you to look at it, it would move up and down, up and down, the moving of the breathing of the spiders, and you couldn’t take your eyes away, like a beautiful velvet carpet.
M: So you saw the statue?
A: Yes, we had lights, there was a hole on top of the hill, and we lowered lights down, and we could see it beautifully. It was about four feet high, beautifully done, like the Crystal Skull, very smooth like satin.
M: Was it of a man or woman?
A: That we couldn’t distinguish from the top what it was. Prom the entrance we couldn’t see it too well, unless we put in lights, and that was difficult to do, we had to put it on long bars to push it in so no spiders would come around us. When my father did hear about the curse, he said, “We’ll close it up. If God wants to give it to the world, one day it will.”
M: Did you discover it?
A: Well it was me, because for some unknown reason I always wandered away from the group, searching, to see if I could find something to show my father; to be proud of me.
M: You said earlier that he met with Augustus LePlongeon and Paul Schlieman in New York.
A: Yes, he knew him in New York in 1912.
M: Was Paul Schlieman Heinrich Schlieman’s son?
Cynthia: We can’t quite make out whether he was his son or grandson.
A: I only know from hearing father telling his friends that when the war was coming, father had dinner with him the night before, and the following morning his yacht was gone from New York, and nobody knew where he disappeared to.
M: Did your father ever mention anything about Augustus LePlongeon?
A: Yes, but I don’t remember much about him. Unfortunately I was always busy giving tea or dinner, so I couldn’t listen too much to his conversation.
M: You mentioned during my last visit that he had met Colonel Percy Fawcett at one time in New York.
A: Oh, he met him in New York at the different clubs, and particularly at the Plaza Hotel. That was sort of a rendezvous place for Englishmen and people interested in exploration.
M: He must have followed some of Fawcett’s explorations with keen interest.
A: Yes, but Fawcett, when he came to New York, he was a very sick man, he had malaria fever very badly, and my father, I did hear him say that he believed he died of malaria.
M: Because they never really did find out.
A: No, they never did find out. They say he was killed by tribes, but father didn’t believe that. He was like my father, he was loved by the native people very much. They sort of gave that warm feeling to the natives. My father could go anywhere with his smile, and I followed behind, because I knew I was going to get in there
M: Did he ever meet Colonel James Churchward?
A: Yea, but I don’t recall anything about their meeting.
M: The Skull has often been called the “Skull of Doom”, but you say that is a false label?
A: It doesn’t mean “doom” like an English-man would say it, it’s Doon, it’s the name of their god. I think my father took a little pleasure in scaring people when he said “Doom”. He was quite a teaser.
M: Well he certainly had quite an interesting life.
A: He had a wonderful life, but he was a wonderful man. Everyone who met him, or had a conversation with him, or knew him or a while they all loved him. I was always with my mouth open listening to what he was saying, because I had never met anyone like him.
D: Could you recant a little about the occasion that the Skull was sweating?
A: That was in Reading, in England. I went upstairs to clean the silver, and I looked at the Crystal Skull, and I saw it was wet, and I thought, somebody got in the room to pour water on it, and when I got near it, it was sort of dripping, and I knew then that nobody got in there because I always kept that room locked. And I wiped it and it still wept. But I had a terrible feeling that day that something terrible was going to happen. And I came down to have lunch and I told Cynthia what I saw, and didn’t think any more, and I went back, but I still had a chilly feeling. I came down for tea about five o’clock, and I put the news on, and then I heard about President Kennedy’s assassination. I knew then that the Skull was telling me that. But not being psychic, I couldn’t define exactly what it was. That’s the first time I’ve ever had any feeling with the Skull.
D: You said there was a butler that didn’t like to be in the presence of the Skull?
A: Oh, that was when we were in Fordingbridge, We entertained a lot of the American officers, General Eisenhower, Omar Bradley and General Alexander who were good friends of my father. We had to have help, so friends loaned us their butler and their maid, and we gave a big party. Every time the butler came back from the kitchen to the dining room, which was a very long hall, he felt terrible. He came about three times to help us, and when we asked him again, his employer said “He doesn’t want to come to your house anymore, there is something very evil in the house.” He couldn’t think what would cause him to feel this way. Of course the Skull was in the box in the hall, closed up, and we couldn’t make out why he wouldn’t come back. So we moved house, and my father was in the hospital, and it was a Saturday afternoon, and I was alone, and I went and got the Skull from the storeroom, which I was going to put in the lounge, and halfway through the hall the phone started ringing. I had no furniture in the hall, so I put the Skull on the stairway. And I answered the phone and a voice said to me “Have you just touched the Crystal Skull, Sammy? And for a second I couldn’t answer and they said “Did you hear me, did you just touch the Crystal Skull? I said, “Yes t I just put it on the stairway to answer, your call.” Then he said, “My butler is laying flat on the floor, and told me that you were touching the Crystal Skull.” I couldn’t believe it, and after that, in the afternoon, I just couldn’t do anything. I just took it in the lounge, put it on the floor, and I sat there. I couldn’t understand why a man twenty miles away could say I was moving the Crystal Skull. The butler left his employer then, he wouldn’t stay with them because they were friends of ours.
M: You said earlier that mere and more psychic impressions and information that’s come through from people who have seen the Skull, have been pushing the date of its origin back further and further?
A: To much earlier than we were told. Lately we had a phone call from a psychic group that said that the Crystal Skull was 74,000 years old, and other psychics say it’s 16,000, and in California, when they did the research, they said it was over 12,000. And its sort of a computer, for healing mostly. We’ve had a lot of psychics bring people down with cancer, and we’ve been told that they have been healed. So that is good if we know that it’s helping people.
M: Could you tall us a little about the research on the Skull?
A: The research determined that today no one could make it. And even with all the tools they have, they couldn’t do it. Its definitely all hand done. And I knew that because the Maya people told us that, that no tool has ever been used. It was done with a certain herb and sand, and it took five generations to do it, and this family had to be related to the high priest, all very religious. This is what the Maya people told us, and I believe them, because they are very innocent and very natural people. I lived seven years with them and I adored it.
M: Your father used to carry the Skull around with him didn’t he?
A: Oh yes, wherever he went.
M: He didn’t really talk much about the Crystal Skull in his books though.
A: No, that was left for me to talk about, because I spotted the Crystal Skull before anybody did. I had a very bad habit of wandering off, which worried my father because of spiders and scorpions and all sorts of things. But I kept walking along on top of the building, which was quite dangerous to do. But I kept seeing something shiny when the sun was getting on ‘ it, and it got me very anxious to get to the spot. But father wouldn’t let us touch any of the stone until the men knew exactly how to move them, so as not to damage any pottery or anything.
M: He was a firm believer in Atlantis wasn’t he.
A; Oh yes, Well he and Dr. Joyce and Dr. Gann, they believed that Atlantis started around the Bay Islands. Till the day he died he believed that.
M: And a lot of the artifacts that he discovered there…
A: They’re in the British Museum and the American Indian Museum in New York.
M: And many of these have been said to be unique in their style to the whole region.
A: Yes.
M: You feel that the Skull should be touched.
A: Oh yes. This has been told to me by a lot of psychic people, that the Skull,’ to keep it-alive, and clear, it has to be touched, it has to have the human feeling on it. This is why, I think, the one in the British Museum has gone so dull. Because it’s under glass, gets no air, and it’s never touched. Even I was not allowed to touch it, and I let them touch mine. And I did think, when I leave this world, that I would leave it to a museum, but I’ve been told by several psychic people not to do that, because it would never be t ached. So my idea now, if I can do it, is to start a foundation, where people can go and see it, touch it, and particularly for illness and things like that, because it is a healing Skull.
M: Can you think off hand of any psychic impressions that-came through about some of the different things that were related to the Skull in the past?
A: What we were told by the Maya priest and Maya doctor there, medicine man that it was used to will death, or to heal. But to will death was like if an old medicine man, was getting to old to perform his work, a young boy was chosen, and boys were laid in front of the altar and the high priest would perform a ceremony, an the knowledge of the old man would go in this young boy, and he would get up as a very knowledgeable man, not a boy anymore but the old man would pass away peacefully.
M: lately some of the psychic information that has come through has even mentioned
Lemuria, hasn’t it?
A: Yes, it has.
M: Some people have reported that there a scent or lights sometimes connected with the Skull. Have you ever experienced this?
A: No, and I see the Skull everyday. No there’s a lovely feeling with the Skull, and I know when I loaned it for research for six years, I never felt right myself. That’s why while I’m alive it’s going to stay right here.
M: Yet some people react differently to being in the presence of the Skull, don’t they?
A: Oh, I’ve only had very few who’ve done that.
M: Hasn’t it put some people to sleep?
A: Oh yes, but it’s a nice sleep, it’s a peacefulness in their mind.
M: I hear its also purported to bring on fertility.
A: It does. Several ladies who have been here have been pregnant since. One lady, for years and years she and her husband tried to have children. Since she saw the Skull she’s had two babies. I think it’s whatever you believe in. If you concentrate on the Skull and believe what you want, the Skull will give it to you. It has more power than any man alive.
M: Thank you Sammy.

The long-cold lava streams flowing under the sea, the fragments of stonework and pottery discovered on the highest hills, told the explorers what they wanted to know: that the Lost Continent was not a legend but a fact.

By F.A. MITCHELL-HEDGES, F.RG.S.

PART ONE

FROM an escarpment on Helene - one of the lovely Bay Islands off the coast of Honduras - I looked down into the translucent waters of the Caribbean and trembled with excitement: there, clearly out lined on the sea-bed, lay evidence for which I’d been searching half my life…
My daughter Sammy - her real Christian name, Anna, is reserved for form-filling and signing official letters - came up beside me, looked for a long while in the direction of my pointing finger, then gave me a curious glance.
“So what?” she said. “It’s just an old lava flow - why get worked up about that?”
“Because it runs right out under the sea!” I cried. “Don’t you understand? A white hot lava flow can’t strike water and go rolling merrily on just as it does on land! It would cool at once and pile up in solid mountains!”

“On To Something”

SAMMY studied the black and sinister ribbon curling down the hillside and out beneath the waves. Her eyes widened and she gasped as the full significance of the phenomenon came to her.
“Yes, of course - I see it now! This means that at the time of the volcanic eruption the sea couldn’t have been there at all!” She made a sweeping movement with one arm over the bay. “All that must have been dry land!”
“All that - and maybe a great deal more. We’re on to something very strange, young feller. You’d better start looking for a headquarters site. Something tells me we’re going to be here for quite a time!”
That night, smoking a last pipe on the deck of the ‘Amigo’ I outlined my theory - based on evidence collected over more than twenty years of exploration in the Central Americas - to Frank Boynton, our barrel-chested, practical skipper.
“B-but that’s just a myth!” he spluttered.
“You’ve been around enough to know that myths usually turn out to have a basis in historical fact.”
“Yes, but this is different - this is big.”
“Don’t let it worry you, Frank. If local myths can be based on the truth, why not a world-wide legend? Listen…”
I explained that Helene’s undersea lava flow might prove to be a vital link in a long chain of evidence that at some remote time a great land area stretching eastward from Central America sank and was engulfed by the sea. Both on the mainland and in the Caribbean islands, geologists had found clear traces of an epic upheaval - cliffs riven and split, giant ‘faults’ where sections of land had dropped or risen hundreds - even thousands - of feet…
In Nicaragua I had explored a freshwater lake many miles inland in which sharks - salt water fish! - lived and bred. The only explanation of this oddity was that on that distant day of chaotic topographical changes, while vast regions went down beneath the waves, there were sections of the sea bed which rose and became dry land! The sharks had become inland ‘captives,’ and presumably had managed to adjust themselves over the ages in which the lake gradually lost its saline quality…
There were many other relevant facts in the ‘jig-saw’ - shells and fossils of sea creatures found on mountain peaks… the ‘overgrown’ iguanas and other strange creatures I had discovered living in almost prehistoric conditions in ‘the Lost World’ - No Name Island, a tiny and remote atoll… ancient rituals of mysterious origin and inexplicable pomp retained by the most isolated and primitive Indian tribes of the mainland…
Frank was impressed. Thought fully he asked: “Is it possible that some sort of civilisation was lost in that upheaval?”
This was something I didn’t dare answer directly: on the few occasions when I’d ventured to voice my personal ideas on the subject, various eminent - but little travelled - scientists had ho v. led me down.
“Wait here, Frank,” I said. “I want to show you something.” I dived below, rummaged in my cabin and returned with a fragment of pottery - the side of a vase, with some of the intricate design still visible. I explained that I’d found it about 100 miles from here, while exploring Cannon Island, an. old stronghold of the buccaneers in Brewer’s Lagoon - named after the infamous pirate, Bloody Brewer. And though I’d dug all round the place where it had come to light, I’d found nothing more.
“What period is it - Maya?” Frank inquired.
”No - it’s archaic. I’ve had several experts examine it. They all say it belongs to an unknown culture.”
He took the relic in his big hand and frowned at it. After a while he gave it back to me, nodded towards the dark, looming mass of the island and said: “You think maybe there’s more of that stuff here?”
“I hope so. If Helene has a past I’m going to dig it up!”

Systematic Search

EARLY next morning Sammy and I, with the crew of five assorted Latins, landed to make a systematic search. Frank, with his wooden leg - the result of a gun battle in Puerto Rico nearly 30 years before - couldn’t tackle the rugged hills and had to stay behind on the ‘Amigo.’
Helene’s limestone cliffs and colossal boulders, showing the erosion of thousands of years, were living evidence of mighty subterranean forces which had once burst into action here. Leaving the shore we pushed into a swamp: the contorted roots of mangrove trees curled and writhed down into oily mud, and a putrid stench filled the air. Even at this early hour the heat was terrific. A dense cloud of insects breakfasted on us.
Beyond the swamp we began to hack our way through lush jungle. Thorned trees and barbed bushes tore at us, and we were constantly entangled in trailing curtains of rope-like liana vine.
We emerged on a flat ridge and abruptly came up against a sheer cliff - a gigantic ‘fault’ traversing the island. On the face were several large holes. At first we took these to be natural caves - but on drawing closer we saw that without question they were hand-hewn!
Scrambling up an enormous heap of boulders piled against the cliff, we found a narrow ledge and edged our way along to the mouth of one of the largest caverns. A current of air, cold and dank, streamed out. I switched 6n my flashlight and advanced into the darkness, Sammy close behind me.
As the light flashed round the walls and roof, swarms of huge fruit-bats set up a shrill squeaking. We froze in our steps and the din faded. Treading softly, we moved on again, but without warning the bats panicked and swooped towards the entrance in headlong flight - their whirring, flapping wings and furry bodies smashing into our faces and chests. We stumbled back to the ledge, flailing our arms to beat them off.
From outside the cave the pandemonium of squeaking and fluttering was even more horrifying. Some strange trick of amplification made the beating of the leathery wings sound like the throb of a giant dynamo. Sammy shivered in revulsion.
“We’ll be smothered in fleas!” she complained, knowing that all bats are alive with the parasites. But somehow we seemed to have escaped without taking on ‘passengers.’
Further along the ledge we came upon another opening. The cave was deep, and so dark that even my power ful flashlight didn’t penetrate far. But there were no bats.
The floor was loose dust and debris, accumulated over centuries. Cautiously we began to dig, gently probing the powdery stuff with our machetes. Al most immediately Sammy gave a cry and held up a large, disintegrating conch-shell - sure evidence of human occupation! Seconds later one of the crew unearthed a small piece of broken pottery!
We were grovelling in the dirt now, rumbling for the age-worn, strangely assorted objects which would enable us to read the history of this place. In the lamp light Sammy’s eyes held an almost fanatical glow, and I knew mine must be the same…
Up out of the dust came the half-side of a vase. With trembling fingers Sammy cleaned some of the dirt from the surface. It had a grotesque decoration - an anthropomorphic (human form) god: it was altogether different from anything unearthed on the main land!

Wonderful Treasures

THIS was the first of many amazing finds. We explored several caves, and every one of them yielded painted pottery, various domestic implements, beads and - most interesting of all - beautifully fashioned jadeite figurines.
At sundown we returned to the ‘Amigo’ - tired out, our fingernails broken, our hands raw and ingrained with dirt. But no one complained: we were laden with treasures more desirable than gold…
Frank Boynton stared in wonder at our collection.
“I thought only Stone Age men lived in caves,” he said. “Surely they didn’t make stuff like this!”
“No - that’s the most important part of it all,” I explained. “The people who fashioned these things had a highly developed culture - yet they lived in miserable holes in the rocks. Why? It seems to me they must have been refugees, forced up on to the high land by floods or tidal waves.”
Sammy chimed in excitedly: “Survivors, you mean! - the remnants of a great civilisation which had vanished in a terrible eruption!”
“You’re going ahead too fast, young feller. We’ve a lot more digging and exploring to do before we draw definite conclusions. All the same - you’re on the right track…”

The Flood

FRANK scratched his head and looked at the island’s towering cliffs, stained dark red by the tropical sunset. The stupendous force of the cataclysm was clearer than ever in this fading light.
“Must have been a hellish upheaval,” he said. “Isn’t there some record of it?”
“You’re a heathen, Frank! Go and read your Bible. You’ll find a full report in the Old Testament.”
He raised one shaggy eyebrow, “You don’t mean - the Flood?”
I nodded and pointed out that dim accounts of the deluge, differing little from the Bible story of Noah, existed in the folklore of all races. A catastrophe of such magnitude could be caused by colossal and devastating changes of the earth’s surface during which the sea swallowed land areas - probably continental in extent.
“If I can find proof here of a pre-Flood civilisation,” I said, “they’ll have to re-write the history of the human race!”
While we had been talking, the crew had cleaned some of the smaller artifacts. Now Sammy brought me three curious specimens - fashioned in the forms of men, about three inches long by an inch and a half wide, with four perfectly round holes in the body and one at the top. They were hollow, and one still contained a little earth. I raised it to my mouth and blew through the top hole to clear it. A clear, sweet note sounded in the still evening air…
It was a musical instrument - an ocarina! By moving my fingers over the other holes I could play a tune!
We found among our trophies eleven of them - a veritable orchestra, since different sizes produced different sets of tones! No ignorant race could have evolved instruments with such perfect tonic and harmonic range - the men who fashioned these were musically cultured!
Squatting on the deck in the twilight we held an experimental concert. An eerie experience to make music with these instruments - unplayed for how long? I kept my estimation to myself - it was too staggering. Certainly many thousands of years…
In the weeks that followed we worked with the zeal of fanatics. Other sites were found and excavated on the island adjoining Helene - Roatan. As on previous expeditions, Sammy found a beautiful spot for our headquarters - a small, palm-clad atoll less than half-a-mile from our anchorage, a haven where cool ocean breezes made each evening a blessed relief. She supervised the building of a bush-house, and beautified the surroundings with vividly coloured conch-shells. We called it Cay Comfort.
The local people proved willing helpers. Light-skinned and handsome, the Bay islanders are the descendants of English buccaneers and high-born Spanish ladies kidnapped in the sackings of Porto Bello and Old Panama. They speak a quaint, almost Elizabethan English, and the surnames Morgan, Haylock and McNab predominate. In their isolated communities they refuse to inter-marry with other races; they will not mix with Spaniards, Hondurans or Caribs, and hardly ever with Indians. They ask nothing of the out side world, and are entirely self-supporting.

Learning Secrets

EACH day brought fresh discoveries, new trophies. Steadily the picture built up - until I was convinced we were learning the secrets of a civilisation with at least thrice the antiquity of Ur of the Chaldees!
Then came tragedy…
Joe, a valuable member of the crew, was a small dark man, partly Carib, partly Spanish, with brooding black eyes and a quiet manner. He knew every foot of the islands, for his home was an isolated shack on Roatan. Almost from the start of the voyage he’d been something of a mystery: he kept very much to himself, and I formed the distinct impression that the others were afraid of him.
One night Sammy checked our stores and found several small items missing. When she questioned the crew on board the ‘Amigo’ next morning, Joe looked very uncomfortable.
“Joe, I believe you stole these things!” she said.
With an angry snarl he reached for the ugly, black butt protruding from the top of his trousers. But he didn’t have time to draw the gun - Frank Boynton, despite his peg leg, could move swiftly. He came across the deck behind Joe and felled him with one great blow.

Deadly Killer

THREE other crewmen had jumped to Sammy’s defence - each drawing his gun. For a moment it looked as if they meant to shoot Joe as he lay on the deck, but instead they hauled him to his feet and proceeded to beat him up. It was as if they were giving vent to pent-up hatred. Frank didn’t attempt to interfere. When it was over, Joe, blood-smeared and semi-conscious, was pitched over the rail; slowly he swam to the shore, dragged himself up the beach and staggered off into the trees.
We didn’t expect to see, or hear, of him again, but two nights later Frank came to the bush-house, white-lipped and grim.
“There’s been a murder on Roatan,” he said. “A woman was. shot - for the sake of a few miserable possessions. They say Joe did it, and they’re out hunting him!”
He sank into a cane chair and before I could say anything went on: “I’ve got Joe’s biography. He happens to be the deadliest killer in Central America - wanted by the policia of at least four countries. One of the men has known him for years - scared to talk till now, but tonight he told me Joe did his latest killing in Honduras. A commandante and five men came after him. He waited in a swamp and plugged the last of ‘em before he knew the first had been hit!”
“Well, it certainly looks as if Joe killed the woman,” I said, after a moment. “Come on - let’s go to the village and find out what’s happening.”

End of A Murderer

WE reached the outskirts just in time to hear a volley of shots and a woman’s high-pitched wail. Hurrying on, we found the entire population silently watching stern-faced men carry out the grim work which, since the days of the buccaneer communities, had been the policeless island’s only sentence on the murderer of a woman. Captured with the victim’s possessions on him, Joe had been summarily shot dead. Now they were cutting up his body and throwing the pieces to a family of ravenous pigs. And among those forced to witness this loathsome sight were Joe’s wife and children…
No one spoke to us as we made our way back through the crowd. They just stared sullenly.
Were they blaming us for the tragedy? Did they regard the other members of the expedition as partly responsible for Joe’s crime?
If they did, then we might as well pack up and set sail in the morning. For, without the wholehearted co-operation, of the islanders, we could not hope to carry on with our gigantic task - only just begun - of reclaiming from the realm of Myth the factual relics of Lost Atlantis!

PART II

THE deputation of Bay Islanders arrived at our expedition headquarters on Cay Comfort soon after daybreak: tall, light-skinned men with piercing eyes and solemn faces. We knew their visit was connected with the previous night’s grim ceremony on neighbouring Roatan - the summary execution of Joe, a member of our crew, for the murder of an island woman.
Were they blaming us for the tragedy? Did they hold the rest of the expedition partly responsible for Joe’s crime? Everything depended on their attitude. Without the whole-hearted co-operation of these islanders we couldn’t hope to carry on with our gigantic task - only just begun - of excavating large and difficult sites for evidence which, we believed, would prove to the world that Atlantis, a myth through the ages, had actually existed.

Anxious To Help

WITH Frank Boynton, the tough one-legged skipper of our 22-ton motor yacht ‘Amigo,’ I went down to the beach to meet them. They greeted us in the quaint, old-style English inherited from their buccaneer ancestors, then the spokesman, a patriarch with flowing white hair, gravely announced that they had come to ask a favour.
It sounded ominous. I took a deep breath, smiled and nodded non-committally. The spokesman scratched his grizzled chin for a moment, then declared his people would be glad if we would come to a feast that night - to celebrate the capture and execution of Joe!
Speechless with relief, Frank and I could only stare blankly. Mistaking our silence for uncertainty, the old man hastened to explain that the islanders were anxious to help us in our excavation work. They realised it wasn’t our fault that a member of our crew had turned out to be a ruthless killer. We reminded us that this isolated community had lived by the same rigid code for more than three centuries. The islanders were their own police, their own judges. Joe had known this. Joe had transgressed. And Joe had paid the penalty. It was unfortunate that we had lost a man, but surely we under stood why this had happened…? Again he assured us that they would and could help us in our quest.
I told them we would be glad to come to the feast and thanked them for their offer. The sun-wrinkled faces broke into wide grins and we all shook hands. It was the start of a long and fruitful partnership.
In the days that followed, almost every able-bodied man and boy turned up at our headquarters, ready to assist in the excavations on Helene and Roatan. With this increased manpower, soon we turned our attention to the exploration of a third island - Barbaret.
My daughter, Sammy and I landed with two crew members and four islanders. Laden with picks, shovels and sacks, we toiled uphill through dense forests filled with squawking parrots and parakeets until we emerged on a grassy slope. Looming before us was the highest point on the island.

Stupendous Task

A SINGLE look told us this was no ordinary hill: it seemed to stop short. The summit had been removed as neatly as the top of a boiled egg. Surely no process of nature could have produced such a perfectly flat ‘table’ - it must be the work of men! A stupendous task for twentieth-century engineers - what must it have been for ancient builders?
We were drenched in sweat and gasping when we reached the top, but we immediately began to probe with our machetes and within a few minutes disclosed huge, flat stones. Sammy found a vase - almost perfect, nine-and-a-half inches high with exquisitely moulded handles and a conventional design. Both sides bore in the centre the mask of an anthropomorphic deity.
We had seen that awesome countenance before - on the pottery recovered from the other two islands.
“The same people!” Sammy breathed. “And always they crowded up on to the highest ground…”
“Don’t blame them,” I said, with the utmost confidence. “They were survivors who’d seen their land engulfed by the sea!”
In the following days as fresh sites were discovered and opened up, the work went ahead at ever-greater speed. The legend of Atlantis grew stark and clear in my mind as day by day we unearthed the artifacts of an advanced, cultural population which these tiny islands could not possibly have developed, or even supported, for more than a few years.

Abode Of Outcasts

SOON I turned covetous eyes on a fourth island - Bonacca. To my surprise our local helpers begged me not to land on the southern end - it was, they said, “the abode of outcasts.”
“They’re quite right,” Frank said. “There’s a settlement there called Savannah Bight - a dozen or so huts, built on piles over the water. They’re a race apart - all Indian and Carib, probably descended from the slaves and captives of the old-time pirates. A real bad bunch.”
“We’re going all the same, Frank. I’ve heard rumours that these Savannah Bight folk keep finding all sorts of things - jadeite, obsidian, pottery galore and even spear-heads. Got to check up on that.”
Frank looked worried, but he didn’t argue, and a few hours later the ‘ Amigo’ rode great rollers through a tiny break in the reef into a miniature lagoon not far from Savannah Bight. Just above the waterline stood a rickety, isolated shack.
Sammy wanted to come with me, but I rowed to the beach alone. As I jumped ashore, an old man and two youths - obviously father and sons-came out of the house. Each wore a gunbelt and the old-timer carried an ancient rifle. Their expressions were distinctly hostile.
They stopped a few feet from me and the old man spoke in weird Spanish.
“We don’t like strangers.” That was all.

Stupid To Quit

FOR about a minute we eyed each other in silence, then he took a pace nearer and levelled the rifle at my stomach.
“Hear me? We don’t like strangers!”
My heart was pounding like a sparrow’s and the muscles of my abdomen were taut and trembling under the menace of the gun. I felt a complete idiot. What was I doing here, risking my neck for the sake of crumbling relics? For that matter, what madness had brought me to this wild, fever-ridden corner of the world? Why the devil had I spurned a nice, cushy job as something in the City…?’
But having come this far, it would be even more stupid to quit now. I braced myself and started to talk in frightful Spanish, at tremendous speed - trying to be the soul of politeness, explaining that all I wanted was a look at any old pottery they might have found.
The old man frowned and his bony finger tightened on the trigger. Mentally I had a foretaste of the bullet’s impact -on my belly. I breathed a prayer of thanks when abruptly he lowered the rifle, turned and started up the beach.
“Come and look,” he grunted over his shoulder.
I followed the trio into the shack. They opened a battered chest and revealed a conglomeration of pottery and various utensils. It was the most promising collection I’d seen so far. I started to ask questions, but the old man slammed the lid down and ordered me outside.
“You’ve seen it,” he growled. “Now back in your boat. Come again and yon won’t leave. We don’t like strangers!”
I didn’t argue. As I rowed back I wondered if there was a way to humour this intractable family. Then, as I neared the ‘Amigo,’ came a vicious ‘Crack!’ from the beach and a bullet smacked into the water close by the stern. A burst of raucous laughter followed. It was too much - I lost my temper…
“Gilly! Charlie! Johnnie! - get your guns!” I yelled as the dinghy came along
side and I scrambled aboard. “We’re going to teach these b——s a lesson!”
I dived below, buckled on my belt and ‘ guns and grabbed my rifle. Then back into the dinghy. My gang was waiting for me - three grinning brigands, busily checking ammunition and spinning the chambers of their well-oiled forty-fives. As we pulled away, Sammy came running to the rail, brandishing a Winchester.
“Wait for me, Dad!” she shouted. But I was temporarily deaf.

Like Brothers

AFTER a few strokes bullets began spraying the water all round us and whistling over our heads. But we crouched low and rowed steadily on. As we drew near the shore and got ready to return fire, the shooting stopped suddenly.
The dinghy beached. We jumped on to the sand. The aggressive trio were waiting, backed up against the shack, rifles levelled.
“Not a step nearer,” the old man said.
We stood no more than thirty feet apart, fingers curled round triggers, sizing each other up and scowling ferociously. A moment passed and then, still smarting from the rough treatment I’d received, I shook my fist and roared, “I don’t like strangers either!”
The result was magical. The three outcasts relaxed, their rifles were lowered, their shaggy heads went back and they began to laugh. My temper evaporated and I joined in their mirth. A moment more and we were wringing each other’s hands and slapping each other’s backs.
We were like brothers after that. The old man showed me everything in his collection and arranged that next day one of his sons would guide us to the area where the relics were found. He also guaranteed that there would be no hostility from his neighbours in Savannah Bight; we were his guests, and automatically the friends of everyone else in the settlement.
A valley: on either side great jungle-clad hills - a sinister and eerie place. Sammy shivered as we followed our young guide through a perfectly flat swamp which seemed to hold a chill of death in its gloomy depths - a sump of mud and disintegrating vegetation that had gone on rotting, layer upon layer, for thousands of years.

Looked Like Ghosts

AFTER about a mile the jungle came down on either side and covered the swamp. Now we had to fight the ooze and at the same time hack a path with our machetes through solid bush. We looked like ghosts in the faint glimmer of the few sickly. sunbeams that struggled down through the thick canopy of towering mangroves.
Three hours of this and both jungle and morass came to a sudden end. We stood at the base of a limestone barrier. It rose from flat, bare plain exactly like the great cliff on Helene - and was possibly a continuation of the same ‘fault,’ strong evidence of the great earth movement in the distant past, marking the place where one section of land had fallen and the other had reared up thousands of feet skywards….
From breaks and fissures near the base of 6 sheer rock wall a spring gurgled, clear and limpid, and flowed into a large, round pool. Sammy threw herself prone to drink, but jerked back with a cry and spat out the first mouthful: it was highly sulphurous.
As soon as she had shaken off her nausea, she ushered me to the water’s edge and pointed excitedly. There was a glint of pottery on the bottom.
Where had it come from? Had it been washed down from some secret place high on the cliff? Were there caves up there, like those on Helene?

Immense Monolith

LOOKING upwards, my eye was taken by an oddly shaped pinnacle of rock about 100 feet directly above the spring. It didn’t look like a natural formation: it jutted out from the limestone precipice, as though carved - an immense monolith with a flattened top.
A platform! I’d seen something like this only once before - in the rums of a great Maya city on the mainland. It gave me an idea - an exciting hunch…
With our shovels we made a fresh channel and managed to divert the flow of water; the bottom of the pool was revealed as a curious grey sand.
“Start digging!”
By mid-afternoon, amazing specimens were piling up - painted pottery, jadeite figurines and several objects of carved granite. Some of the latter disintegrated in our hands as we lifted them out; after thousands of years’ submersion the granite had become as soft as toothpaste!
The grey sand was only a few feet deep. Two or three hours’ work proved that we were standing in a huge basin of marble which had silted up! My hunch had been right - this was a sacred well, into which valuables had been cast as sacrifices.
The whole secret of the spot lay in the sulphurous water. The ancients would come to know it had medicinal properties, and probably the aged and infirm bathed In it. And, of course, they would ascribe its virtues to beneficent gods.
It wasn’t difficult to reconstruct the scene. Up on that great stone pulpit the high priest, the king and nobles in their vivid robes - in full view for miles against the tremendous background of limestone…. The high priest raising his hand, eyes flashing, voice trembling with fanaticism…. The people, crowded in their thou sands on the flat plain in front of the cliff, chanting in answer to his dread words, stripping themselves of their treasured Ornaments and casting them, together with their most beautiful vases and other goods, into the miraculous waters…
For many weeks the sacred well and its surrounding area constituted our most productive site. Of the hundreds of specimens we found there, scarcely one was of an ordinary character. Some of the pottery was amazingly beautiful and a high percentage of ‘the dig’ was in perfect condition.
The most important discovery was a god, sculptured from granite - as luck had it, still hard as on the remote day when it had splashed into the pool. Set on a curious plinth and measuring one foot nine inches tall, this idol was a work of art of the highest order. Today it may be viewed at the Museum of the American Indian (Heye Foundation), New York.
Bonacca, having proved the richest hunting ground, called for the most meticulous exploration. Our effort was rewarded with the most startling disclosure yet made: within an 800-yard wall enclosure we came upon a giant semi-circle of monolithic stones, obviously a place of worship - similar to the Druid stone formations to be found in Cornwall. This ‘Druidical’ religious site yielded large quantities of skilfully fashioned weapons: fine obsidian and chert spear-heads and arrow-heads.

Marvellous Find

THEN came a change of fortune. With 21 sites going strong, I went down with malarial fever and had to be carried back to Cay Comfort. I lay in the bush house with a temperature of 104, and had the most beautiful dreams. But there were times when, coming out of my delirium for a few minutes, I heard the wind howling through the palms outside and - knew that the rainy season was at hand. Once the weather broke there could be no more excavation, and there was one important task I’d left unfinished - the great lime stone cliff on Helene, with its man-made caves, had yet to be properly explored.
Sammy, ignoring my advice and the warnings of Frank Boynton, began off her own bat a systematic search of the caverns. Day after day she was caught in rain squalls and drenched to the skin. Before long she too had a touch of fever, but it didn’t stop her. One night I came out of a delirious bout to find her bending over me, eyes gleaming with excitement.
“Dad - I’ve found something marvellous!”
“What is it?” I croaked.
She withdrew, suddenly crafty.
“I won’t tell you. It’ll have to wait till you can come and see for yourself!”
Argument and appeal were useless; but three days later, my fever gone, but very weak and groggy, I followed her - gloating and still secretive - through Helene’s miasmatic swamps and jungle to the great cliff. We had with us four islanders, and I noticed they were unusually quiet and uneasy.

Statue Of A God

SAMMY led the way up a crumbling O path to a narrow entrance, cunningly concealed, about ten feet above ground. With our spotlights we negotiated a long, narrow passage and with startling sudden ness entered a hollowed-out chamber, roughly twelve feet wide.
She directed her lamp’s beam to the centre: there, sparkling like a million diamonds, stood a four-foot statue of a man - perfectly fashioned out of pure rock crystal!
Overawed, I stood looking at it for a long time in silence. Then I walked forward and made a close inspection. Sammy had been right - it was “something marvellous.” The figure had been rubbed down with sand from a solid block: I knew such a task could only have been done over centuries, generation after generation working with infinite patience - for rock crystal is very nearly as hard as diamond.
The statue was clearly one, of the principal gods of the Atlanteans. One thing was certain - it could not have been fashioned here, on this small island. I saw only two possibilities - either Helene was once part of a great continent, a mountain used as a place of worship and pilgrimage, or the figure had been brought here after the holocaust, by survivors of Atlantis pious enough to remember it in their country’s dying hours. The latter theory was certainly the least probable, yet I couldn’t help wondering where was the crystal god’s original home - in some vast temple now lying on the sea-bed? How many millions had paid homage to it, and what kind of people were they? If the figure could only speak, what wonders would it tell of that golden age beyond the dawn of history when, according to the persistent legend, a glamorous land of riches and culture lay in the West ’somewhere beyond the Gates of Atlas?’
“Somehow we’ve got to get this back,” I said, eyeing its bulk dubiously.
“No, Father!” Sammy’s eyes challenged mine in the stark light of the powerful torches. “We can’t take it away from here.” She came closer and laid a hand on my arm. Quietly, unemotionally, she explained that the islanders had known of this statue for centuries - it must have been rediscovered with the arrival of the buccaneers. They regarded it with superstitious dread. Today it was to them almost as much a god as it had been to the ancient survivors of Atlantis…
“They’ve shown us everything else on the islands, but they tried to keep this a secret,” she said. “I found it by accident - a million-to-one chance. Now they’re terrified, convinced that if it leaves Helene, something horrible will happen to them.”

Difficult Decision

I WENT outside, lit a pipe and argued with my conscience. It was one of the most difficult decisions of my life, but of course Sammy was right.
“Come on - let’s get back to the boat,” I said, and strode off in something of a rage. Sammy turned to our four islanders and said something I didn’t catch, then came after me. We’d covered only about two hundred yards when a deep rumbling made the ground tremble under our feet. I wheeled round; Sammy and I were alone… “What was that? Where are the others?”
Without a word Sammy turned and started back towards the cliff. I hurried after her. We emerged from the trees as the dust was settling: the entrance to the cave was blocked by an enormous pile of rocks and debris - an impassable barrier. I looked up and saw four fight brown faces peering down from a forty-foot ledge. A great wedge of limestone had been prised away and sent hurtling down the crumbling precipice, causing an avalanche…
“I told them they could do it,” Sammy said blithely. “They were glad you decided not to move the statue, but they wanted to make sure that no other explorer would come and take it away. Now it’ll stay on Helene for ever…”
I said nothing. As we turned away for the last time, heavy drops pattered down on the broad leaves of tropical foliage; by the time we reached the ‘ Amigo,’ the whole sky was the colour of gunmetal and a stiff wind was whip ping the sea into angry, grey foam. The rainy season had arrived.
“Up anchor, Frank! Our next job’s in New York.”

And the British Museum said…

“The specimens which you have submitted… have been carefully examined. It is my opinion that they represent a very early type of Central American culture, probably pre-Maya. The fact that they appear to bear relations with the pre-Conquest civilisations of Costa Rica, early Maya and archaic Mexico suggests that this is an early centre from which various forms of culture were diffused over Central America.
“The complex certainly ought to be examined, because, in my personal opinion, the results are likely to shed a new light on current ideas of the origin and development of the American aboriginal civilisation…”

From a letter to the author from the late Capt. T.A. Joyce of the Department of Ethnography, British Museum.

Danger My Ally

“Danger My Ally” was not only the autobiography of F.A. Mitchell-Hedges, it was also the first time that he related the story of the skull – including an image. Remarkably, the references to the skull were removed from the US edition, published in 1955. One reviewer described the book as follows: “F Mitchell-Hedges account of his life in the earlier part of the 20th Century is a fascinating and gripping tale of a man unhappy with the post Victorian lifestyle of the world about him. He decides to explore the jungles of Central America. His journeys take him across several continents where he meets the famous and infamous. He, quite simply, does it all!!!
This man is a true hero. Explorer, expert fisherman, archaeologist and philosopher. His discoveries have changed the viewpoints of our conceptions relating to the evolution of man. Indiana Jones wouldn’t even be allowed to carry this mans luggage.” The book was republished in 1995.

Text from the insert from Danger My Ally, by F A Mitchell Hedges, 1954:
“To see part of the world that no man has trodden; to own a treasure that no one else possesses; to live excitingly and to enjoy this - this for me is fun.” these are the words of F.A. Mitchell Hedges, once penniless boy, now millionaire explorer collector, Pancho Villa’s fighting General, a man whose adventures are as weird and varied as the items in his museum. Lizards eight feet long, with blue heads, and black ringed bodies; crabs three feet long with claws like a man’s fist - these are some of the creatures he has seen and photographed. Shrunken heads, crystals skulls, poisoned skeletons, priceless jewels - these are some of his prized collector’s pieces. His journeying into unknown counties, where he discovered traces of pre flood civilisations, to the Indian Ocean where he fought and caught giant fish weighting up to two and half tons - these and more are described here by a man to whom the British Museum and other institutions pay homage for his prehistoric finds. But in his autobiography, this modern Odysseus in addition to telling the story of his experiences in exploration, archaeology, and deep-sea fishing, talks frankly on more controversial subjects as well. Mitchell Hedges is a man who has never lived according to the rules and conventions laid down by society and has often quite blatantly defied them, and so he occasionally had to join battle, not only with the elements and monsters of the sea, but with his fellow-explorers and those whom he called “armchair scientists”. In this book for the first time, he exposes the background of his struggles against apathy, misrepresentation and exploitation. Danger My Ally is an altogether fascinating book.

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Skull inspirations

Since the 1950s, a number of books have tackled crystal skulls. In 1972, Sibley S. Morrill published “Ambrose Bierce, F.A. Mitchell-Hedges and the Crystal Skull”. “The Skull speaks”, published in 1985, was nevertheless the veritable rise to fame of the Mitchell-Hedges skull, based on a series of trance communications received through the skull. Since 1985, authors like Robert Temple and Frank Dorland, who studied the skull personally, have added to books in which the skull is prominently mentioned.