Many skeptics feel that the crystal skulls are probably of a much more recent vintage than their accompanying stories suggest. This, they believe, is the best way to explain their existence, since no one could have created them without technologies available only within the past century.
Skulls are humanity’s foremost symbol of death, and a powerful icon in the visual vocabularies of cultures all over the globe. Thirteen crystal skulls of apparently ancient origin have been found in parts of Mexico, Central America and South America, comprising one of the most fascinating subjects of 20th Century archaeology.
These skulls, found near the ancient ruins of Mayan and Aztec civilizations (with some evidence linking the skulls with past civilization in Peru) are a mystery as profound as the Pyramids of Egypt, the Nazca Lines of Peru, or Stonehenge. Some of the skulls are believed to be between 5,000 and 36,000 years old.
Many indigenous people speak of their remarkable magical and healing properties, but nobody really knows where they came from or what they were used for.
Were they left behind after the destruction of a previous world, such as Atlantis? Are they simply ingenious modern fakes or can they really enable us to see deeply into the past and predict the future?
Much research is currently being done on the skulls. However, their origin is still a baffling mystery. They seem to defy logic. Everything that is known about lapidary work indicates that the skulls should have been shattered fractured, or fallen apart when carved.
Skulls are humanity’s foremost symbol of death, and a powerful icon in the visual vocabularies of cultures all over the globe. Thirteen crystal skulls of apparently ancient origin have been found in parts of Mexico, Central America and South America, comprising one of the most fascinating subjects of 20th Century archaeology.
These skulls, found near the ancient ruins of Mayan and Aztec civilizations (with some evidence linking the skulls with past civilization in Peru) are a mystery as profound as the Pyramids of Egypt, the Nazca Lines of Peru, or Stonehenge. Some of the skulls are believed to be between 5,000 and 36,000 years old.
Many indigenous people speak of their remarkable magical and healing properties, but nobody really knows where they came from or what they were used for.
Were they left behind after the destruction of a previous world, such as Atlantis? Are they simply ingenious modern fakes or can they really enable us to see deeply into the past and predict the future?
Much research is currently being done on the skulls. However, their origin is still a baffling mystery. They seem to defy logic. Everything that is known about lapidary work indicates that the skulls should have been shattered fractured, or fallen apart when carved.
An old Native American legend tells of thirteen life-size crystal skulls, which are said to hold crucial information about humankind’s true purpose and future destiny. The skulls would be discovered and their secrets revealed when the human race was sufficiently developed. The authors hear of this legend while in the jungles of Belize and set out on a quest to discover its truth. “The Mystery of the Crystal Skulls” follows their journey from Maya temples to the British Museum, the Smithsonian, and to the crystal laboratories of Hewlett-Packard, where tests lead one scientist to conclude, “This {crystal} skull should not even exist.” In the end, shamans and native elders reveal the sacred knowledge the skulls contain and answer the questions this enduring mystery raises: Are the skulls artifacts from the lost civilization of Atlantis, or are they extraterrestrial in origin?
Made from piezo-electric quartz crystal, used in today’s computers, are the skulls information storage devices?
Do they really posses telepathic qualities, allowing us to see deep into the past and predict the future?
What is the message they bring about future earth changes and the destiny of humanity?
Made from piezo-electric quartz crystal, used in today’s computers, are the skulls information storage devices?
Do they really posses telepathic qualities, allowing us to see deep into the past and predict the future?
What is the message they bring about future earth changes and the destiny of humanity?
Famous Crystal Skulls
This report examines the known history of crystal skulls, various viewpoints on where they might have came from, and the secrets they may reveal.
The Mitchell-Hedges Crystal Skull
The most widely celebrated and mysterious crystal skull is the Mitchell-Hedges Skull, for at least two good reasons. First, it is very similar in form to an actual human skull, even featuring a fitted removable jawbone. Most known crystal skulls are of a more stylized structure, often with unrealistic features and teeth that are simply etched onto a single skull piece.
Second, it is impossible to say how the Mitchell-Hedges skull was constructed. From a technical standpoint, it appears to be an impossible object which today’s most talented sculptors and engineers would be unable to duplicate.
Second, it is impossible to say how the Mitchell-Hedges skull was constructed. From a technical standpoint, it appears to be an impossible object which today’s most talented sculptors and engineers would be unable to duplicate.
The discovery of this baffling artifact is a controversial matter. It was brought into prominence by British explorer F. A. Mitchell-Hedges, who claimed that his daughter unearthed it in 1924. Mitchell-Hedges led an expedition in the ancient Mayan ruins of Lubaantun, in Belize (then British Honduras), searching for evidence of Atlantis.
The story goes that his daughter, Anna, was rummaging inside a structure believed to have once been a temple, when she found the beautifully carved cranium of the crystal skull. It was lacking its jawbone, but the matching mandible was found three months later, some 25 feet away from the first discovery. Mitchell-Hedges claimed that he refused to take the skull away, and offered it to the local priests, but the Mayans gave the skull back to him as a gift upon his departure.
It now appears that this tale of the skull’s discovery was entirely fabricated. Mitchell-Hedges apparently purchased the skull at an auction at Sothebys in London, in 1943. This has been verified by documents at the British Museum, which had bid against Mitchell-Hedges for the crystal artifact.
This revelation is consistent with the known history of Mitchell-Hedges’s involvement with the skull. There are no photographs of the skull among those that were taken during his Lubaatun expedition, and there is no documentation of Mitchell-Hedges displaying or even acknowledging the skull prior to 1943.
The skull remains in the possession of the octogenarian Anna Mitchell-Hedges. She resides in Canada and displays the skull on frequent tours. Anna has maintained for all these years that she discovered the skull, even though there is reason to doubt that she was present at the Lubaatun expedition at all.
The Mitchell-Hedges skull is made of clear quartz crystal, and both cranium and mandible are believed to have come from the same solid block. It weighs 11.7 pounds and is about five inches high, five inches wide, and seven inches long. Except for slight anomalies in the temples and cheekbones, it is a virtually anatomically correct replica of a human skull. Because of its small size and other characteristics, it is thought more closely to resemble a female skull — and this has led some to refer to the Mitchell-Hedges skull as a “she.”
The Mitchell-Hedges family loaned the skull to Hewlett-Packard Laboratories for extensive study in 1970. Art restorer Frank Dorland oversaw the testing at the Santa Clara, California, computer equipment manufacturer, a leading facility for crystal research. The HP examinations yielded some startling results.
Researchers found that the skull had been carved against the natural axis of the crystal. Modern crystal sculptors always take into account the axis, or orientation of the crystal’s molecular symmetry, because if they carve “against the grain,” the piece is bound to shatter — even with the use of lasers and other high-tech cutting methods.
To compound the strangeness, HP could find no microscopic scratches on the crystal which would indicate it had been carved with metal instruments. Dorland’s best hypothesis for the skull’s construction is that it was roughly hewn out with diamonds, and then the detail work was meticulously done with a gentle solution of silicon sand and water. The exhausting job — assuming it could possibly be done in this way — would have required man-hours adding up to 300 years to complete.
Under these circumstances, experts believe that successfully crafting a shape as complex as the Mitchell-Hedges skull is impossible; as one HP researcher is said to have remarked, “The damned thing simply shouldn’t be.”
