The Mystique of the Crystal Skulls

Part 1

Origins of the Crystal Skulls

The Crystal Skulls are a series of objects carved from white quartz (or rock crystal) in the form of human skulls, which some claim come from pre-Columbian cultures of Central America. However, none of the objects made available for scientific examination have been confirmed to be of pre-Columbian origin.
Indeed, the results of the analyses have, if anything, shown that the skulls examined had been manufactured during the mid-nineteenth century, almost certainly in Europe during the period of interest in ancient cultures. Despite what has been written in popular literature on the skulls, especially in reference to their alleged mystical powers, they are not mentioned in Central American mythology or in that of the American Indians.
Some members of the New Age movement claim that these skulls are capable of producing paranormal phenomena, but not even this has been conclusively proven.
There are several skulls preserved in various parts of the world, and each with its own story:

The Mitchell-Hedges Skull - Perhaps the most famous and enigmatic artifact, which seems to have been discovered in 1924 by Anna Mitchell-Hedges, the adopted daughter of the famous British adventurer and author F.A. Mitchell-Hedges.
This finding was the subject of a video documentary filmed in 1990 (Crystal Skull of Lubaantun.)
The skull was examined by Smithsonian researchers who described it as "A replica very close to the British Museum skull, almost exactly the same shape, but with more detail on the eyes and teeth.
Mitchell-Hedges claimed to have found the skull buried under a collapsed altar inside a temple in Lubaantun, in present-day Belize. As far as it has been possible to ascertain, F.A. Mitchell-Hedges himself never made mention of the alleged discovery in any writing on Lubaantun. Others present at the time of the excavations did not mention the discovery of the skull or even Anna's presence on the spot.
According to new evidence presented in the National Geographic documentary, the skull was bought at the Sotheby's auction by F.A. Mitchell-Hedges in London on October 15, 1943. Shortly thereafter, he spoke of the purchase in a letter to his brother.
The skull is made from a block of clear quartz the size of a small human skull. It measures 13cm high, 18cm long and 13cm wide. The jaw is detached. In the early 1970s it was temporarily kept by the restorer Frank Dorland who, upon inspecting it, said that it had been "sculpted" without the slightest regard for the natural axis of the crystal and without the use of metal tools. Dorland added that he had not been able to find any scratches or abrasions, except for traces of mechanical leveling of the teeth. He hypothesized that the object had first been chiseled into a rough shape, probably using diamonds, while the work of refining the shape, leveling and cleaning would have been achieved through the use of sand over a period of 150-300 years. .
Dorland said it might as well have been 12,000 years old. Although the skeleton has been said over the years to possess particular physical properties, including a constant temperature of 21 °C (70 °F), Dorland said he found no differences between the skull's material and other crystals quartz.
While the skull was in Dorland's custody, it attracted the attention of writer Richard Garvin, who at the time worked in an advertising agency and oversaw the promotional campaign for Hewlett-Packard. Garvin requested and was granted permission to have the skull analyzed by Hewlett-Packard's crystal labs in Santa Clara, California.
The various tests conducted in the laboratory showed that the object was not obtained in the way Dorland hypothesized, but modeled on a single quartz crystal.
Tests established that the lower jaw had been machined from the same crystal. Hewlett-Packard did not continue in further testing.
Regarding the leveling traces on the teeth, archaeologist Norman Hammond argued that the notches (presumably used to support the object) have the characteristic signs of contact with metal tools. Anna Mitchell-Hedges refused any subsequent requests to subject the skull to further scientific testing.

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The first publication to report on the skull dates back to July 1936, in the British anthropological journal Man, where the possessor is indicated as Mr. Sydney Burney, an art dealer who seems to have had it with him since 1933. No mention was made of Mitchell -Hedges. Instead, there is documentary evidence that Mitchell-Hedges bought the skull from Burney in 1944.
F.A. Mitchell-Hedges mentioned the skull only briefly in the first edition of his autobiography, Danger My Ally (1954), without specifying where it was found and by whom; he simply states that,

"It is at least 3,600 years old and according to legend it was used by the Grand Priest of the Maya during the practice of esoteric rites. It is said that when he wanted someone's death, with the help of the skull this invariably came."

All subsequent editions of Danger My Ally completely omit any reference to the skull.
In 1970 Anna wrote in a letter that

"I was told by the few Maya left that the skull was used by the High Priest to give death."

For this reason the object is sometimes called "The Skull of Destiny". Anna Mitchell-Hedges began exhibiting the skull for a fee in 1967 and in 1988 and 1990 the tours were still active. The woman continued to give interviews on the object until her death on April 11, 2007. In the last eight years of her life Anna lived in Chesterton, Indiana (USA) with Bill Homann whom she had married in 2002. After Anna's death, the skull passed under the ownership of Homann who continues to believe in his mystical properties.
In November 2007, Homann took the skull to the office of anthropologist Jane MacLaren Walsh at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History for examination. Walsh performed a series of tests using ultraviolet rays, a high illumination microscope, and computed tomography analysis. Homann returned to the museum again the following year so that he could film a documentary for the Smithsonian, called Legend of the Crystal Skull; on this second occasion, Walsh took two silicone casts for an SEM (Scanning Electron Microscope) analysis. The data obtained revealed that the crystal was worked with a rotating metal tool covered with an abrasive that could be diamond dust. Walsh's detailed investigation of objects from Mexico and Central America showed that early pre-Columbian craftsmen used to work stone by the method of abrasion on the surface of the object with stone or wooden tools, while in the late pre-Columbian era the abrasive tools used were made of copper covered with abrasive sand or stone dust. These notions led Walsh to the conclusion that the skull was sculpted around 1930 on the basis of the one preserved in the British Museum and exhibited since 1898.
In the National Geographic documentary The Truth Behind the Crystal Skulls, forensic artist Gloria Nusse performed a facial reconstruction based on a replica of the skull. According to Nusse, the face obtained would be that of a woman with European characteristics, concluding that it could not have been created by the pre-Columbian civilizations of Central America.
This conclusion appears rather fragile if we think of the pre-Columbian legends concerning their genesis. In fact, in the Popul Vuh it is said that Viracocha, the first "God" who transmitted knowledge to the Incas came from the ocean and was white-skinned and had Western characteristics; similarly Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent of the Aztecs, is said to have come from a lost land beyond the ocean (perhaps Atlantis) and was described as a "white" deity. It cannot therefore be ruled out a priori that the Crystal Skulls may in some way represent the ancient pre-Columbian gods with their unique characteristics.
 The Skull of the British Museum - The Crystal Skull preserved in the British Museum made its first appearance in 1881 in the shop of the antique dealer Eugene Boban. Its origin was not mentioned in the catalog of the time, but Boban said he attempted to sell it to the National Museum of Mexico as an Aztec artifact with no success.
Boban later moved to New York City, where the skull was sold to George H. Sisson. The object was exhibited by George F. Kunz during the conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in New York in 1887; it was later put up for auction and bought by Tiffany and Co., which later sold it to the British Museum in 1897.
The skull is very similar to that of Mitchell-Hedges, although less detailed and devoid of the mobile jaw. In the catalog of the English museum we read that "the origin of the skull is probably European, 19th century A.D." and it clearly describes itself as an inauthentic pre-Columbian artifact, but obtained with modern tools.

The Skull of Paris - It is the widest of the three skulls sold by Eugene Boban to Alphonse Pinart: it measures 10cm in height and has a vertical cavity running through it in the center. The skull is part of a collection of the Musee du Quai Branly and in 2007-2008 was the subject of tests and analyses by the Center de recherche et the restauration des musses de France (Center for Research and Restoration of French Museums, or C2RMF). The results of the analyses - which lasted about three months - led the C2RMF engineers to claim that the object was certainly not pre-Columbian, since it retained traces of cleaning and abrasion from modern tools. Testing with a particle accelerator also revealed traces of water dating back to the 19th century. The museum released an official statement on the dating (1800) following the results of the tests.
In 2009, C2RMF researchers published the full results of their investigation to establish exactly when the Paris Skull was carved. SEM (Scanning Electron Microscopy) analyses indicated that a machine was used to cut and clean the gems. The results of a new dating technique called QHD (Quartz Hydration Dating) showed that the skull in question was created later than the quartz sample used as a reference and cut in 1740. The researchers then concluded that the SEM and QHD results combined with the skull’s provenance place its creation in the late 18th or 19th Century.


The Smithsonian Skull - Cataloged under Number A562841-0 in the collection of the Anthropology Department inside the museum, was sent by mail to the Smithsonian Institution anonymously in 1992, and the donor claimed to be an Aztec object taken from the collection of Porphyry Diaz. It is the largest of the Crystal Skulls, weighing 14 kg and 15cm high. It was sculpted using a modern abrasive. It is still exhibited as a "modern fake" inside the museum.