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

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.