Sacred Relics or Alien Artefacts?

Although researchers have written dozens of books and hundreds of articles about crystal skulls, few have attempted to explain the origin and purpose of these sculptures. For some, the crystal skulls are 19th-century “hoaxes”; for others, they are extraterrestrial artefacts, while yet others believe they are remnants of a lost civilisation.
Perhaps the most likely explanation is that they are part and parcel of the ancient cultures, particularly the Mayan, that existed in the area of Central America where they were found. Could it be that these skulls were one of the most important relics in the sacred temple complexes? Crystal skulls speak to the imagination, but are some of these skulls and their stories too good to be true?
The English artist Damien Hirst focused his 2007 exposition “Beyond Belief” around a platinum skull completely covered by 8,601 diamonds weighing 1,106 carats. “For the Love of God” is a life-sized cast of a human skull containing a single large diamond in the middle of the forehead, reportedly worth US$4.2 million alone. Hirst financed the project himself, and estimated its cost as between £10 and £15 million (approx. US$20–US$30 million). It is the most expensive piece of contemporary art ever created. He later sold the skull to an unnamed investment group for £100 million (approx. US$200 million).
The fourth instalment of the Indiana Jones movie, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, has Indy in a race against Soviet agents to find a crystal skull. In an early episode of the television series Stargate SG-1, a crystal skull was used as an artefact, left behind by an ancient extraterrestrial civilisation, which transported people between Earth and the aliens’ home world. Crystal skulls have therefore served Hollywood and the entertainment industry well. But Tinseltown’s plotlines are very much copied from existing theories about crystal skulls – one of which was insured for US$500,000, and this was 30 years ago. But what are they?
The crystal skulls began their slow climb to fame in the 1980s, largely through researcher Joshua Shapiro’s meeting Sandra Bowen and Nick Nocerino, who had a crystal skull named Sha-Na-Ra in their possession. Slowly, Shapiro became exposed to a number of other skulls, with names such as the Mayan Crystal Skull, the Mitchell-Hedges Crystal Skull and the Texas Crystal Skull (also known as Max, supposedly given to the people of Guatemala by a Tibetan healer).
In March 1989, Bowen, Shapiro and Nocerino’s Mysteries of the Crystal Skulls Revealed was released. The book created a vehicle through which the authors were able to “meet” several more skulls, with names such as Windsong, Rainbow, Madre, Synergy and even ones named Skully and ET. ET is a smoky quartz skull found in the early 20th century in Central America. It was given its nickname because its pointed cranium and exaggerated overbite resemble those of an alien being (and the skull is somewhat similar to the alien-looking one that Indiana Jones needs to find). ET is part of the private collection of Joke (pronounced “Yo-kay”) Van Dieten, who tours with her skulls to share the healing powers she believes they possess.
Today, there are dozens of crystal skulls in circulation. The majority of these are what are perhaps best called “second-generation” skulls – modern fabrications, owned or “worked” by people who use the skulls for healing, meditation, channelling, etc. But there are also a dozen or so skulls that appear to be older and from unknown provenance. These crystal skulls have largely appeared out of nowhere, often going straight into private collections. Only two skulls sit in museums – one in London, the other in Paris.

Controversy over Fabrication Claims

The British Museum Skull is part of the exhibit at the Museum of Mankind in London, where it is one of the most popular items on display. The label on its case reads “originally thought to have been Aztec, but recent research proves it to be European”, of late 19th-century fabrication. The museum obtained the skull for £120 in 1897 from Tiffany & Co., the New York-based jewellers. As to how Tiffany’s had acquired it, speculation was that it originated from a soldier of fortune in Mexico.
In 2004, Professor Ian Freestone, of the University of Wales at Cardiff, examined the skull and concluded that it was cut and polished with a wheeled instrument, which he said was not used by the Aztecs (see http://hnn.us/roundup/comments/9582.html). Freestone argued that the sculpture was therefore of modern, post- Columbian origin, further noting that the crystal used was common in Brazil but not Mexico – the Aztec homeland – and that “the surface of the skull, which contains tiny bubbles that glint in the light, is more sharply defined than softer-looking Aztec crystal relics with which it has been compared”. However, Freestone said that even though there was strong circumstantial evidence suggesting the artefact was 19th-century European in origin, this did not amount to cast-iron proof.
In recent years, the story of how the British Museum acquired the crystal was investigated by Dr Jane MacLaren Walsh of the US Smithsonian Institution. She concluded that the British Museum Skull and the one at Musée de l’Homme (Museum of Man) in Paris were both sold by Eugène Boban. Boban was a controversial collector of pre-Columbian artefacts and an antiques dealer who ran his business in Mexico City between around 1860 and 1880. Though it is indeed likely that Boban placed the skull at Tiffany’s for auction, there is no hard evidence. However, such evidence does exist for the Musée de l’Homme Crystal Skull, which in 1878 was donated by collector Alphonse Pinart who had bought it from Boban. Boban’s 1881 catalogue does list another crystal skull, “in rock crystal of natural human size”, selling for 3,500 French francs – the most expensive item in the catalogue. It is possible it was never sold, and hence was offered to Tiffany’s to sell at auction.
Having established these facts, however, Walsh then argued that the skulls are not genuine artefacts but instead were manufactured between 1867 and 1886 in Germany, as German craftsmen were deemed to be the only people with the skills to be able to carve these skulls.
Though Boban was indeed a controversial figure, he was, of course, no different from all the other operators on the antiquities markets in those days – some of whom made deals for treasures such as the Rosetta Stone or the Elgin Marbles that continue to upset entire nations from which they were “exported”.
However, there is no evidence – not even circumstantial – that Boban sourced these skulls from Germany. It is logical to conclude that, as Boban operated in Mexico, he may have acquired the skulls in Mexico. It would be completely logical to assume that, if they are Aztec in origin, they were offered on the Mexico City antiques market where Boban picked them up. It is the most logical scenario, yet academics seem to prefer the modern German fabrication theory for which there is no evidence. Why? Perhaps they prefer to label them as fakes so as to evade potential claims from Mexican authorities?
As to the fact that the skulls were polished with a wheeled instrument, Professor Freestone himself argued that this in itself does not mean they are modern fabrications (he examined the Paris as well as the London skull in 2004). Though Freestone, Walsh and others suggested this overturns the likelihood that the skulls are pre-Columbian, other experts like Professor Michael D. Coe of Yale University stated that evidence of wheel markings in no way proves that the skulls are modern. He actually said that although it has long been accepted that no pre-Columbian civilisation used the rotary wheel, new evidence contradicts this scientific dogma. Wafer-thin obsidian ear-spools are now known to have been made using some rotary carving equipment and to be dated to the Aztec/Mixtec period. According to Chris Morton and Ceri Louise Thomas in The Mystery of the Crystal Skulls, Coe concluded (p. 226): “People who sit in scientific laboratories don’t know the full range of the culture they’re dealing with. We really don’t know half as much about these early cultures as we think we do. People need to re-examine their beliefs.”
Walsh and some of her colleagues have largely presented Boban as a charlatan, but they’ve failed to report that Boban was known to have owned genuinely ancient artefacts as well as a collection of rare books and early Mexican manuscripts. He had even written a scientific study, “Documents pour server à l’histoire du Mexique” (”Documents to serve the history of Mexico”) (1891). Furthermore, he personally crusaded against frauds and fakes, such as in 1881 when he spoke out against forgeries that were being made in the suburbs of Mexico City. Would he shoot himself in the foot that same year by listing a fraudulent crystal skull in his catalogue?
Mentions of the German connection and claims of Boban’s dishonesty come from a single letter from one of Boban’s competitors, Wilson Wilberforce Blake. He wrote how they should buy from him, not Boban, who was “not honest”, and he made accusations that the skull Boban had sold was a forgery, insinuating that the skull had been made in Germany instead. However, no evidence was ever produced for any of these claims, and it is clear that Blake had an obvious motive as to why he wanted to smear Boban’s character: he was specifically after Boban’s share of the market.
In short, Walsh has uncovered good indications that Boban had skulls and sold them; but as to a German connection, she has relied on the words of a man who almost openly stated that he was out to smudge Boban’s ethics. As such, the story of how the crystal skulls have been treated by academics has – alas – all the usual hallmarks of how the scientific establishment treats such anomalous finds and pushes them aside, labelling them fakes. And afficionados of the genre will know that involvement of the Smithsonian Institution and the British Museum in such a controversy is not a unique event.

Archaeological Speculation

Could these skulls be genuine archaeological finds? As Morton and Thomas pointed out, Boban’s artefacts went on sale at a time when Teotihuacán, just north of Mexico City, was being excavated. Teotihuacán is one of the most important sites in the Americas, with pyramids – and a pyramid layout – on par with the pyramids of the Giza Plateau.
Boban is known to have visited the excavations; in fact, he did so in the company of Leopoldo Batres, the Inspector of Monuments. Interestingly, Blake claimed that Batres, too, was “not only a fraud but a swindler”. Even if these allegations were true, did Boban get the skull from Teotihuacán? If so, the finger of guilt should not point to Batres. In those days, half of the finds the excavators made ended up on the black market, while the other half became part of the “archaeological record”. It is known that even the great Howard Carter, in his exploration of the Tutankhamun tomb – heralded as the greatest archaeological discovery of the 20th century – fell victim to this.
Either way, concluding that the skulls are genuine archaeological treasures is more logical – and better documented – than speculating about a theoretical German connection. However, it is a fact that none of the skulls was found during an archaeological excavation – that is, apart from the so-called Mitchell-Hedges Crystal Skull, named after its discoverer, the adventurer F. A. (Mike) Mitchell-Hedges, if we believe the “official” version of its find. This skull is by far the most beautiful, detailed and complex, and consists of two parts: the skull itself and a separate jawbone which allows for movement, as if the head is speaking. Famed science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke used an image of this skull as the logo for his popular television series Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious World.
The official version goes that the skull was found in the ruins of Lubantuun in Belize (then British Honduras) in 1924 during an archaeological survey of the site, though controversy reigns over this conclusion. This “Skull of Doom”, as Mitchell-Hedges himself labelled it, was not referenced until 1931 as being in existence.
In his autobiography Danger My Ally (1954), Mitchell-Hedges stated that “the Skull of Doom is made of pure rock crystal and according to scientists it must have taken 150 years, generation after generation working all days of their lives, patiently rubbing down with sand an immense block of rock crystal until the perfect skull emerged”. He continued: “It is at least 3,600 years old and according to legend was used by the High Priest of the Maya when performing esoteric rites. It is said that when he willed death with the help of the skull, death invariably followed. It has been described as the embodiment of all evil.” For a man who had “danger” as his “ally”, he obviously tried to frighten his readers with the power of this object.
So, Mitchell-Hedges associated the crystal skull with the Maya in 1600 BC – when the Maya were not yet around. Noting Mitchell-Hedges’s interest in finding evidence for Atlantis, many people have argued that the skull is therefore a relic of this earlier civilisation. What the sceptics have made of this can be easily divined…

A Crystal Legacy

Today, three main theories exist about what crystal skulls are and where they come from. One argument states that they are an extraterrestrial legacy; another that they are remnants of a lost civilisation (often to be read as Atlantis), both of which are favoured on the New Age circuit. For the sceptics, they are “obviously” late-19th-century fabrications from Germany. A fourth theory, however, might be closer to the truth.
The problem of the crystal skulls is that they are made of crystal. Quartz crystal does not age; it does not corrode, erode, decay or change in any way with time. It cannot be carbon dated. A skull could be hundreds if not thousands of years old, yet still look as if it was made yesterday – and vice versa. Hence, other means of dating had to be devised, and so evidence of skulls having been polished with wheels has become the key determinant of whether they are modern/post-Columbian or “genuine” archaeological artefacts.
As mentioned, Michael Coe has scorned those laboratory scientists who have preached against the authenticity of the skulls. And rightfully so, as one skull, owned by Mexican Norma Redo, is mostly notorious, at least for some, as the skull that supports a large crucifix on its top. The skull shows similar “evidence” of wheelwork, but from his analysis archaeologist Dr Andrew Rankin argued that the skull was sculpted from the same crystal as that of the crystal goblet from tomb no. 7 at Monte Albán, which is an uncontested archaeological find. Furthermore, the 1571 hallmark on the crucifix is also deemed to be genuine, thus in general excluding the likelihood that this skull is of 19th century European fabrication. In short, this hard evidence confirms what Michael Coe has argued: that the Maya apparently do seem to have been able to work with crystal… and thus may have made the crystal skulls after all.
However, the Maya would not have been the only ancient civilisation to have mastered working with crystal. Robert Temple’s The Crystal Sun (2000), subtitled Rediscovering a lost technology of the ancient world, was promoted thus: “Based upon 33 years of research all over the world, in museums from Stockholm to Shanghai, from Athens to Cairo, and in thousands of books in several languages, Robert Temple has reconstructed a wholly forgotten story: the story of light technology in ancient civilisation. It goes back at least to 2600 BC in Old Kingdom Egypt, and continues throughout Western antiquity.”
Temple’s quest began when he spoke to Arthur C. Clarke about the Mitchell-Hedges Skull, whereby British science historian Derek Price, who is most famous for his study of the Antikythera device (another anomalous archaeological discovery that only recently has received serious academic attention), then spoke to him about the Layard Lens as another example of our forefathers having worked with crystal.
In the mid-19th century, English archaeologist Sir John Layard excavated the remains of Babylon and Nineveh. In 1850, during the excavation of the throne room of the Assyrian King Sargon II’s palace, he discovered a lens. It is dated to 721–705 BC and is currently – also – in the British Museum. It is considered to be the first used (or found) plano-convex lens.
Temple notes on his website: “…this rock crystal lens, now cracked and considerably damaged, was originally a perfect convex lens with a flat (’plane’) base, which was ground in a special way known to opticians as ‘toroidal’ – a technique only available for the public since about 1900. Such grinding produces lenses to correct for individual cases of astigmatism. It would be possible to go out into the street today and find someone whose astigmatism was perfectly corrected by the Layard Lens… It is most extraordinary that such a high technology existed in the 8th century BC. And not a single Assyriologist has acknowledged the publication of my study of this important object except for the one who encouraged me in the first place; he was curious as to what the results would be. So it appears that the community of Assyriologists find it convenient not to ’see’ my book.”
Why? Largely because, as with the crystal skulls, the establishment believes – for that is what it is – that only from the 19th century were “we” able to do such things.
However, archaeologists are not totally denying the existence of lenses in antiquity, as evidenced in a study by George Sines and Yannis A. Sakellarakis (American Journal of Archaeology, vol. 91, no. 2, April 1987), reporting how “…a recent find in the Idaean Cave in Crete of two rock crystal lenses of unusually good optical quality led to this investigation of other lenses from antiquity. The evidence indicates that the use of lenses was widespread throughout the Middle East and the Mediterranean basin over several millennia.” They added: “The use of lenses as burning glasses in Classical Greece is noted, as is the need for magnifying lenses to authenticate seal impressions.”

Scientific Scrutiny of the “Skull of Doom”

In 1936, eminent anthropologist G. M. Morant and Adrian Digby, a future Keeper of the Department of Ethnology at the British Museum, analysed the Mitchell-Hedges Skull and argued that it is not of modern workmanship. Digby wrote: “… in neither case [they analysed the British Museum Skull as well] 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 recent origin.” Writing in the journal Man in July 1936 (vol. 36), they both commented that the skull’s detachable lower jaw would have taken the creator – whoever he was – many hundreds if not thousands of hours of extra work, and that thus there would have to have been an important reason why the jaw had to be detached – more so than for purely artistic reasons. In 1964, Anna “Sammy” Mitchell-Hedges – the adventurer’s adopted daughter and custodian of the Skull of Doom – lent the skull to Frank and Mabel Dorland, famous art experts and restorers. Dorland commenced his study by taking many photographs from various angles. He also used a binocular microscope to create a three-dimensional image of the skull.
During this scientific analysis, the skull also seemed to reveal a magical dimension. One evening, Dorland finished his work too late for the skull to be returned to its vault in the Mill Valley Bank. So he took the skull home, placing it next to the fire he had lit for the evening. He then noticed how the light of the fire was reflected through the eyes of the skull. This made him realise that the skull allowed certain optical effects to be produced – though other stories state that throughout the entire evening the house was also a hive of poltergeist activity.
Dorland discovered that the optical effects were the result of how the skull had been carved, which gave him even further insights into the precision of the workmanship. He observed that there was a type of “layering” on top of the skull, which made the skull behave like an amplifying glass. The back of the skull channelled the light through the eye sockets at the front of the head. While no one would be able to see what was happening from behind the skull, anyone looking at the face would perceive a spectacular series of images that would appear to come from within the skull itself.
Finally, Dorland discovered two holes at the bottom of the skull that are invisible when the skull is positioned upright. The holes can be used so that the skull can be swung without falling over. Together with the detachable jaw, this was a further indication that this skull was not a mere display object but had been created to perform certain functions: to move, if not pretend to speak (via the detachable jaw), and to “project” certain images to the observer standing in front of it.
In December 1970, Dorland took the skull to the laboratories of Hewlett-Packard in Santa Clara, California, at the time one of the world’s most advanced centres for computers and electronics. The lab technicians were specialists in the production of precision quartz crystals, which were used in various high-tech instruments. It meant that they were perfectly suited for trying to figure out how the skull could have been made.
One test revealed that the skull was made out of one piece of quartz, with the separate jawbone coming from the same piece. The lab technicians stated that they were unable to create a skull like that with the technology available to them in 1970. Their analysis showed that the skull exhibited three different types of workmanship, and hence they suggested that work on it was carried out over three generations, or a period of 60 to 70 years – about half the time Mitchell-Hedges argued it would have taken to make: 70 versus 150 years, a small difference nevertheless.
That three generations would have worked, day in, day out, on creating one skull was an unlikely scenario, and thus the skull was proposed to have been created with “unknown technology” – which soon became interpreted as being of alien origin or from a previous civilisation that was technologically superior to ours, which quickly got linked with Atlantis. This was, of course, what Mitchell-Hedges had always claimed: that this skull was physical evidence of a lost, advanced civilisation.
Larry LaBarre was one of the testers at Hewlett-Packard and a decade after the 1970 tests he added to his previous observations: namely, that the quartz is very hard, measuring nine out of a possible 10 on Moh’s scale, meaning that only a diamond would be able to cut it. The quartz, though of one piece, was furthermore composed of three or four growth phases, each with a different axis. Cutting it would have been extremely difficult, as hitting upon a new axis might shatter the crystal if the cutter was not careful. (This is one of the main reasons why larger diamonds are more valuable; it is not solely the stone but the workmanship involved that makes large diamonds expensive.)
As for the origin of the quartz, LaBarre suggested Calaveras County in California. However, gem expert Allan Jobbins, who researched the skulls for the Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious World TV program, thought the likely origin of the crystal was Brazil.

Skull Visions and Mayan Symbolism

In recent years, controversy has raged around the creation of the skulls. With unknown provenances for them all, there are legitimate questions to pose. One of the problems is that if they are archaeological treasures, their purpose seems difficult to ascertain. Indeed, archaeologists have failed to look towards the crystal skulls as items of archaeological interest, and hence this blank canvas has been used by many people to put forward their own speculations, some more outlandish than others.
As noted, Mitchell-Hedges believed that if a Mayan priest held the “Skull of Doom” while killing someone in his thoughts, that person would die. He also believed that, equally, those not convinced of the power of the skull would die. Anna Mitchell- Hedges said that the skull “spoke” to her.
In recent times, many people have used the skulls for scrying, or visual meditation sessions. Many have reported visions, often scenes from an ancient or foreign civilisation. The scenes witnessed vary strikingly, however. Some people have reported observing scenes from Mayan history, while others have reported receiving knowledge from Atlantis.
Such landscapes might actually be due to the technological aptitude of its creator(s). Frank Dorland noted the presence of two prisms within the crystal. He argued that the artist made full use of this and that the skull was therefore perfectly suited for oracular utterances. He made a series of photographs looking into the skull; these were able to capture the series of “visions” that others have had. In some, he distinguished truncated pyramids; in others, a structure like the US Capitol Building, which has a contemporary equivalent in Chichén Itzá in the Caracol; while in still other images, several little skull shapes manifested themselves. Dorland added that these images only materialised when looking through the right eye socket and that no such shapes could be seen when staring into the left eye socket.
Such information, however interesting, does not provide any firm evidence of the crystal skull’s true purpose. For this, we need a clear frame of reference – and this has to be the Mayan civilisation, which existed until a mere four centuries before these skulls were discovered in Mexico.
One proposition came from American archaeologist Professor Sylvanus G. Morley, who argued that within the Mayan world the skull was the symbol for the number 10: “the head-variant for 10 is the death’s head, or skull, and in forming the head-variants for the numbers from 14 to 19 inclusive, the fleshless lower jaw of the death’s head was the part used to represent the value of 10 in these composite heads for the six higher numbers”.
Though once again interesting, this proposition does not bring us any closer to an understanding as to the skull’s real purpose. However, it does show that in the Mayan world the symbology of the skull was indeed important. There are stone skulls throughout the ancient Mayan kingdom. One such skull stands at the Temple of the Inscriptions in Palenque and another in Tikal. Both skulls are carved at the top of a row of steps leading into a room that seems to have been a shrine. A stone skull is also found at the entrance to the cave beneath the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacán. But most skulls are to be found on the Tzompantli (”Platform/Place of Skulls”), one of the most famous of which is at Chichén Itzá.

The Skull in Mayan Creation Mythology

That the skulls were discovered in the Mayan heartland is evidence which accords with the few facts that we know of their provenance. The Mayan Skull and the Amethyst Skull were allegedly found in Guatemala early in the 20th century. The Amethyst Skull is made of purple quartz and the Mayan Skull is clear, but the two are otherwise very alike. Like the Mitchell- Hedges Skull, both were studied at Hewlett-Packard and they, too, were found to be cut against the axis of the crystal, making the craftsmanship all the more difficult and the crystal all the more likely to crack or shatter during the fashioning process.
Of more direct relevance is that Nick Nocerino claims that he met a shaman in 1949 while travelling in Mexico. The shaman led him to a Mayan priest who said he was authorised to sell crystal skulls because the village needed money for food. Nocerino didn’t buy them, but he did study them. However, it was clear that someone was putting these skulls on sale in Central America. What happened then had happened before, and entire Mayan villages are known to have been “financially supported” by the sale of archaeological goods that at one point they had placed on the black market. With all that on offer, why would Boban need to source a German crystal skull, pay for it and then actually have great difficulty selling it?
Thus there is one likely and logical conclusion, which is that the skulls came from somewhere in Central America. It suggests that these skulls were acquired by certain people through “some” means that did not see the light of day, and that some time later they ended up at auction, the traceability of their origin largely erased.
But if they are of Central American origin, what purpose did the skulls serve, assuming they are archaeological treasures? It is a fact that all the sacred centres, including Lubantuun where Mitchell-Hedges allegedly discovered his crystal skull, had a Tzompantli which formed part of the sacred layout of the temple complex, which itself was a three-dimensional rendering of the Mayan creation myth.
This myth states that when playing ball, the twin maize gods disturbed the lords of Xibalba, the Mayan underworld. The Xibalbans summoned the two maize gods to the underworld to answer for their disrespectful behaviour, where they were subjected to a series of trials. When they failed these tests, they were killed and buried in the ball court of Xibalba. The elder twin was decapitated, and his head was hung in the tree next to the ball court as a warning to anyone who might repeat their offence. Later, and despite this warning, the daughter of a Xibalban lord went to visit the skull, which spoke to her, spitting in her hand and thus making her pregnant.
The site where the skull was hung was the Tzompantli, and in sites such as Chichén Itzá it is still a clearly identifiable part of the temple complex.
One of the tasks of the Mayan high priests was, of course, to “perform” the creation myth. The skull in Mayan mythology was linked with the hero’s death, but also with rebirth. It is therefore intriguing to note that the explanation of the crystal skull serving as part of the Mayan creation myth does conform roughly with Mitchell-Hedges’s interpretation of the skull’s use.
This creation story has clear parallels with the technical capabilities of the Mitchell-Hedges Crystal Skull. A skull made of crystal would indeed leave the impression that this was the skull of a deity, not of a mere mortal. It should be noted that the Mitchell-Hedges Skull has no suture marks on the pate. Though experts agree that adding such an effect to the skull would have been very easy to do, the absence of such marks has several connotations. It suggests the skull, though human looking, is not that of an ordinary being. It suggests that the skull’s “owner” either was born as an adult or/and was somehow a divinity, a perfect being. Furthermore, the detachable jaw would have allowed the skull to “speak”, as the hero’s skull is known to have done in the creation myth. Noting that the skull in this myth spat, the Mayans might have engineered that effect, too, through the use of the movable jaw that the Mitchell-Hedges Skull possesses.
Dorland demonstrated that, in order to give it the illusion of speaking, the skull could be moved by using the two holes in its base. A rod, thrust up through another hole in the altar and into the larger hole in the base of the skull, would provide the means whereby motion could be given to the crystal. The smaller hole in the skull’s base would serve as the receiver for a pivot point on which the skull would move. The skull’s ability to portray images would furthermore have helped the person standing in front of it to have visions or at least be able to dream away…

A New Era and the “Gathering of the Skulls”

This brings us to another often overlooked question which few people have asked: why crystal? As already mentioned, crystal skulls are now frequently used for scrying, and the use of crystal balls in mediaeval Europe was very similar to the modern use of crystal skulls in the New Age community. However, within a Mayan framework, we can go much further.
Part of the Mayan creation myth was the lighting of a New Fire, in a so-called New Fire Ceremony which also signalled the start of a new era. The New Fire, made by the gods, was a key aspect of the “esoteric rites” – to quote Mitchell-Hedges.
Today, this type of ceremony is best known in the lighting of the Olympic Flame which occurs in the run-up to a new era – the Olympiad – in the Greek temple of Olympia. Here, 11 women, playing the roles of the priestesses who were originally responsible for keeping the temple’s sacred fires alight, perform a ceremony in which the torch is kindled by the light of the Sun, its rays concentrated by a parabolic mirror. As already noted, lenses were used in antiquity to concentrate light. In Greece, fire had divine connotations, and legends state that it had been stolen from the god Zeus by Prometheus. But Greece was but one of dozens of civilisations, whether in the Old or the New World, in which fire played an important and sacred role. The Mayan civilisation was another.
It is therefore of great interest to know that the Mitchell-Hedges Skull is able to start a fire if the Sun’s rays fall at a particular angle on the back of the skull. Visually, it would mean that the bright sunlight coming out of the nose, mouth and eyes would start a fire, very much like the sacred fire in Olympia. Rather than use a parabolic mirror, did the ancient Mayans use a crystal skull to light the New Fire, the core ingredient that marked the start of a new era?
If this interpretation is the correct one, then there would have been one skull per religious site. This would make them very rare – but we already know that these skulls are indeed extremely rare. Though at present there is no hard evidence to prove it, this theory has the advantage of fitting with all the available evidence – unlike some more “academic” theories. If correct, it does make the crystal skulls powerful symbols: the residence of gods. And it is perhaps not a coincidence that the crystal from which the Mitchell-Hedges Skull was made is the same material used in modern technological appliances to store information.
It is clear that some of the “psychic communications” between some people and the skulls make for “extravagant” and at best unlikely claims. Sceptics have had a field day with tales of how the skulls are of alien origin, perhaps from such star systems as the Pleiades or Orion, and claims that they may be hundreds of thousands of years old.
But someone listening to a record with a broken needle will hear a very distorted communication. He is likely to conclude that the needle needs replacing and that this will thus allow him to hear the record correctly. In the case of the crystal skulls – made out of a material that is known to be able to store information and to be an electrical conduit – could it be that we have the record but we are still in search of the correct record-player?
For their book, Morton and Thomas interviewed several North, Central and South American Indians. Time and again, the authors were confronted with stories of how these crystal skulls are important. They were told that the Maya had a total of 13 such skulls – 13 being an important number for them and, interestingly, derived from the number of joints in the human body (ankles, knees, hips, wrists, elbows, shoulders, neck). We can only speculate on whether there were 13 primary temple complexes in the Mayan world, that each had a crystal skull, and that somehow these skulls formed a network. Either way, the Native Americans argue that these 13 skulls should be reunited, with 12 skulls in a circle and a 13th in the centre. Though this imagery has become very popular within the New Age community as a “Gathering of the Skulls”, believed to signal a New Age of Enlightenment, it may be nothing more – or less – than the Native Americans remembering their common heritage and what the crystal skulls originally represented.

Philip Coppens
This article appeared in NEXUS Magazine, April-May 2008 edition

Tags: Atlantis | creation myth | crystal skull | Frank Dorland | Maya | Mitchell-Hedges | Philip Coppens

The German origin of the skulls

Claims exist that there is “near proof” about how the skulls have been traced to a German village that specialized in crystal. Though it is indeed true that this village had many experts in working with crystals, there is no evidence that they made any or several crystal skulls. Worse, there is not a single piece of evidence which connects the French antiquities dealer Boban (or any other Mexican antiques dealer) with the crystal manufacturers of this village. The claim made by some that it is likely or almost proven that several skulls were fabricated in this village, is unsupported by evidence. It is an unsubstantiated theory, and is hence without scientific validity.

The 1943 auction of the “Skull of Doom”

Certain people have made a lot about how Mitchell-Hedges bought the skull at auction in 1943. This is an undisputed fact. But this “revelation” takes the focus away from the fact that the skull is known to have existed in 1936, when it was studied by the British Museum. The report stated that it could not trace the skull’s existence beyond 1934.
No evidence has been uncovered how Burney acquired it, or that he felt it was of recent origin. If he did acquire it as a “modern fake”, he would surely not have taken the risk and submitted it for testing by the British Museum in 1936? Furthermore, noting that Burney and Mitchell-Hedges were friends, all the available evidence is definitely in favor of Mitchell-Hedges possessing the skull in the early 1930s – which in itself does nothing for or against the age or origin of the skull.

The “controversial” Boban

Jane Walsh should be commended for tracing the Paris and British Museum skull back to Eugène Boban. However, no-one has uncovered any evidence that the Mitchell-Hedges skull has any connection with Boban.
Furthermore, there is no evidence whatsoever that Boban ordered these skulls in Germany, or knew they were fake. As all art dealers, some fake artifacts did pass through his hands, but he is known to have been a man who spoke out against fakes, and felt the sale of fake artifacts was counter-productive for the market in which he was operating. He personally crusaded against frauds and fakes, such as in 1881, when he spoke out against forgeries that were being made in the suburbs of Mexico City.
A contemporary art dealer, Wilson Wilberforce Blake, at a time when he was openly claiming that everyone should buy from him, not Boban, did claim the skull was fake. No shred of evidence exists to substantiate this allegation – which had clear economical motives.

“A third generation skull”

Walsh has labeled the Mitchell-Hedges skull as a third generation skull, seeing it is the most detailed and best of the crystal skulls known to exist. She therefore considers it more modern than the Paris and British Museum skulls. It is implied therefore to be post-Boban. However, no evidence has been produced for her claim, and as the skull is allegedly even more recent than Boban’s, one would expect there to be evidence that is easily obtainable. However, none is produced.
Furthermore, as enticing as her generational approach to cataloguing the skulls is, it suggests a group of people perfecting their techniques over time and thus their end product becoming ever more refined. However, in the case of the crystal skulls, we are talking about 5 to 6 artifacts, which, if indeed of recent origins, were still apparently produced over a period of 40 to 60 years (ca. 1860-1900-1920 AD), which has innate problems:
a. one person would likely only do one skull in his lifetime;
b. there is no evidence at all to argue that the more basic skulls are older than e.g. the Mitchell-Hedges one;
c. there is no evidence that all skulls come from the same location, let alone the same “crystal factory”;
d. why would this German town only have sold to or via Boban, and not put such crystal skulls in their “general catalogue” and on sale elsewhere and locally?

Hence, this generational cataloguing is without any foundation in fact and at present pure speculation.

Evidence of wheels in production as proof of post-Columbian/modern origin

Walsh et al. claim that the presence of evidence on the skulls that wheels were used, is evidence of not only post-Columbian, but specifically modern origins.
However, this conclusion is at odds with the evidence. The crystal skull owned by Mexican Norma Redo supports a large crucifix on its top. This skull shows evidence of wheelwork. But from his analysis, archaeologist Dr Andrew Rankin has argued that the skull was sculpted from the same crystal as that of the crystal goblet from tomb no. 7 at Monte Albán, which is an uncontested archaeological find.
Furthermore, the 1571 hallmark on the crucifix is also deemed to be genuine, thus in general excluding the likelihood that this skull is of 19th century European fabrication. This suggests the skull dates from 1571 or earlier. Though it does not prove the skull is pre-Columbian, it does indicate that crystal skulls were made in Mexico before 1600.
Finally, Professor Michael D. Coe of Yale University stated that evidence of wheel markings in no way proves that the skulls are modern. He stated that although it has long been accepted that no pre-Columbian civilization used the rotary wheel, new evidence contradicts this scientific dogma. Wafer-thin obsidian ear-spools are now known to have been made using some rotary carving equipment and to be dated to the Aztec/Mixtec period. According to Chris Morton and Ceri Louise Thomas in The Mystery of the Crystal Skulls, Coe concluded (p. 226): “People who sit in scientific laboratories don’t know the full range of the culture they’re dealing with. We really don’t know half as much about these early cultures as we think we do. People need to re-examine their beliefs.”

Psychic powers, Atlantis, and alien origins

We cannot be held responsible for other people’s opinions or theories about the origins of the crystal skull. Throughout her lifetime, Anna Mitchell-Hedges was accommodating to psychics, artists and scientists who wanted to work or study the artifact. Claims that she never allowed the skull to be scientifically tested, are erroneous.
Equally, F.A. Mitchell-Hedges never stated the skull was from Atlantis, or an extra-terrestrial civilization, or like. In fact, he is on the record, in his autobiography “Danger My Ally”, as stating his conviction that the skull was a Native American artifact, used by local shamans in their “esoteric rites”.

Tags: Atlantis | Boban | crystal skull | Jane Walsh | Mitchell-Hedges | Mitchell-Hedges crystal skull | Smithsonian

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.

Tags: Atlantis | explorer | Mitchell-Hedges