ANNA’S SECRETS

The story of the first skull deserves a special paragraph, which involved the very young Anna Mitchell-Hedges, in what later became a real archaeological and mystical phenomenon full of contradictions, mysteries, falsifications and half-truths. Anna died bringing with her the most important and never-revealed secret: was she the one who found the crystal skull? And where?
But there are also other secrets linked to this controversial character.
Belize, Central America. Year 1924.

British adventurer Frederick Mitchell-Hedges crossed the Atlantic with his daughter Anna to explore the ruins of the ancient Mayan city Lubontoon. One afternoon, Anna climbed to the top of a pyramid in the hopes to see the ocean. She later recounted:

“It was noon and I was at the top and the way the sun was hitting me, and the way the rocks were moving, there was just a little opening and the sunlight was coming in and illuminating the top of the skull. I ran down all excited saying - There is someone inside there [the pyramid] with a torch - .“

Anna's father and others were too big to fit the opening so they tied Anna to a rope and lowered her into the orifice. When they pulled her up, the little girl was holding a strange skull in her hand. A second search led to the discovery of the jaw. This is one of the many stories that can be found on the Web relating to the discovery of the Mitchell-Hedges Crystal Skull. The reality is quite different, even if a linear reconstruction is difficult. Anna, as long as she was alive, never allowed an in-depth study of her skull.
After 2007, as mentioned above, Anna's husband finally took the skull to the Smithsonian for a thorough analysis.
But the real story of the Mitchell-Hedges Skull begins with another skull, the one in the British Museum which allegedly provided the original model for forging the copy.
The conclusion is that the author of the Mitchell-Hedges Skull had copied it from the skull in the British Museum, and improved it in detail so as to make his work appear more authentic.
The first to own the skull was a man called Sydney Burney, who for ten years had tried in vain to sell the skull to various people. He finally managed to place the object at Sotheby's auction in London in 1943. The buyer was Frederick Mitchell-Hedges.
In a letter written to his brother directly after the purchase, Mitchell-Hedges expressed his satisfaction saying he was happy to have come into possession of the Crystal Skull.

	NAGAS: A Shapeshifting History
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