Legend of the Crystal Skulls

this is one of the most mysterious and controversial objects in the world a crystal skull called the skull of doom it's the inspiration for 2008's Hollywood blockbuster and the man who made it famous was a real-life Indiana Jones a flamboyant adventurer and buccaneering archaeologist his crystal skull and a handful of others like have gave in birth to a legend that has caught the imagination of millions of people worldwide legend that it's one of 13 ancient crystal skulls from a lost civilization which when United will unlock the secrets of universal knowledge but who made these skulls and when what is the real truth about how they were found it's a mystery that's obsessed archaeologists scientists and believers for over a hundred years now state-of-the-art technology will finally reveal their secrets in Paris one crystal skull goes back on display after months of scientific testing in London scientists try to establish the origins of a second crystal skull in the British Museum in Washington DC a 16 year old investigation by the Smithsonian Institution into a third Crystal Skull reaches its climax but this skull perhaps the most famous of all has been in private hands ever since it was discovered it is the skull of doom fashioned from solid quartz crystal it has spawned a global movement of devotees who believe it has extraordinary powers it's a computer it's already programmed and you don't have to type on little Keys all you do is put your hand on if people will accept the possibility of past life I have a memory of working in the temples in Atlantis where they had crystal skulls when you see it in a picture it's beautiful but when you see it in person it there's there's a beauty that you could really feel inside its supporters believe the skull of doom was created three and a half thousand years ago by an ancient American civilization obsessed with human sacrifice that for centuries it lay undisturbed until the arrival of this man Frederick mitchell-hedges an exotic English adventurer who some claimed was a real-life inspiration for Indiana Jones mitchell-hedges was a lifelong rebel in 1898 he dropped out of school at the age of sixteen to travel to the Arctic he claimed he fought alongside the Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa he was alleged to be a spy for British naval intelligence and later he roamed the jungles of Central America in search of ancient remains he was a man of action he believed that you could not make great discoveries he could not really understand what was going on unless you were out there unless you were getting dirty you were sweating you were taking risks and so he was at odds with a lot of the archaeological community for that reason mitchell-hedges had an eye for the giant catch and for the ladies too especially if she was a rich aristocrat he traveled with a number of lady companions most notably Mable Richmond Browne who was the estranged wife of a mad baronet and who had money you know most women particularly they found mitchell-hedges a very attractive person he lived a dashing life he was the ultimate swashbuckling you know adventurer in the 1920s mitchell-hedges embarked on the adventure that would make his name he traveled to lubaantun in Central America to explore the thousand-year-old ruins of the Mayan civilization he made an extraordinary claim about the Mayans connection with the legendary lost continent of Atlantis I believe that the Lantis did exist and when the earth moved and the waters came rushing in upon it a continent was submerged and that a remnant survived and that from these evolved the great Maya civilization mitchell-hedges was unable to furnish any evidence of this remnant of Atlantis but he made a further claim that he'd come across a unique object used during ancient death rituals a life-sized skull of pure quartz crystal he named it the skull of doom it is at least 3,600 years old and according to legend was used by the high priests of the Maya it is said that when will death with the help of the skull death invariably followed it has been described as the embodiment of all evil how it came into my possession I have reason for not revealing exactly how he discovered the skull of doom was a secret frederick mitchell-hedges would take to his grave it would be someone else his adopted daughter Anna who would tell the world and make the skull a global sensation their relationship was intriguing Anna told of how she'd been orphaned and looked after in Canada by an uncle who lived opposite a hotel by Lake Niagara mitchell-hedges 26 years her senior often came to stay there to fish and became fond of her according to her story she was adopted by mitchell-hedges when she was 10 I think Anna mitchell-hedges would later state that in 1924 when she was 17 she accompanied Frederick mitchell-hedges on his expedition to lubaantun the ancient Mayan site in British Honduras modern-day Belize she claims to have been with him the lubaantun excavations in 24 and 25 she became a sort of a companion of his he hobnobbed with very exciting people he was a fun guy to be around she was always a lot of times in the right place at the right time she was like his luck his his whole luck and life changed and they were like a major team together Frederick and Anna Mitchell hedges each recorded how at lubaantun they became caught up in the adventure that would bring them Fame lubaantun was almost unexplored and a potential treasure chest of Mayan relics mitchell-hedges who had no formal training in the fragile science of archaeology stumbled into action they hired local Maya who simply dug trenches into house mounds and collected the artifacts that came up there was no sense of scientific excavation there was no recording taking place this wasn't archeology it was Sunday afternoon looting there's a wonderful picture of mitchell-hedges and lady Richmond Brown sitting side-by-side on the steps of one of the pyramids at Lu ban tune from which they had just removed the top with dynamite in order to see if there was tomb inside no not surprisingly there wasn't - by the time they got inside it at the time mitchell-hedges reported only minor finds at lubaantun but decades later an acclaimed they'd made a remarkable discovery I was 16 when I spotted it it was New Year's Day first of January 1924 by her - of the Myers say if you go on top of that building you'll have the most wonderful view so I sneaked on top and it was very dangerous something kept shining in my face I moved one or two stones carefully sun's pouring on it the stones covered a large hole Anna said that soon after the stones were cleared by her father it was her 17th birthday I was let down by two ropes as I was going down there were big snakes I looked around and I saw something shiny it was the top of a skull the object Anna said she found was of magnificent workmanship carved from a single block of almost flawless quartz Mayan artifacts made of crystal were extremely rare a Mayan crystal skull was unique it was a world first yet Frederick mitchell-hedges said nothing publicly about it when he left Lou bond tune in 1926 the skull of doom was later secretly stored in England where mitchell-hedges returned to live with Anna for a showman like mitchell-hedges such reticence was uncharacteristic some believed he wanted to hide the skull from the benefactors who had funded his digs basically mitchell-hedges never said a word about it he publicly the crystal skull was a footnote in his career mitchell-hedges slipped into a more sedate middle age as a radio personality telling his stories of adventure he died in 1959 and soon all those who might have witnessed the discovery of the skull of doom were dead too except Anna and what he find on these expeditions can you tell us something about that we found a lot of pot raised and Jade's and miss Cara doon and did he find a sort of sunken cities yes he found the lost city which was the Maya Anna had chosen a good time to publicize the discoveries the 1970s would bring a new fascination with ancient Americans and sites like Chichen Itza provided new evidence and insights into the Mayan civilization that seemed to tie in with the idea of a skull of doom the skull rock at chichen itza was actually a war memorial it is likely to have been a platform on which the skulls of sacrificed victims were piled we have evidence for human sacrifice among the Maya were not just artistic evidence but we actually have the human remains showing the effects of this after her adoptive father's death Anna considered selling the skull but experts doubted its authenticity its discovery had not been documented and to sum her story sounded suspicious in an attempt to authenticate the skull Anna took it to a sympathetic art expert Frank Dorland Dorland arranged for it to be examined at hewlett-packard in California quartz crystal was an important part of consumer electronics and HP had a crystal laboratory first the skull was lowered into benzyl alcohol to test that it was quartz crystal if it was quartz it would look as if it had disappeared it did then to see if the separate jaw was from the same piece of quartz as the main skull the hewlett-packard scientists drew upon the law of crystal this is a natural quartz crystal this is just the way it came out of the ground is just the law of Crystal's that they always have to show the same symmetry the same basic shape hewlett-packard scientists observed that both pieces were from the same solid block of quartz the next and most crucial question was its age this presented a huge problem crystal contains no carbon the standard means of dating ancient objects instead the scientists looked for clues on the skulls surface such as marks made by the tools that carved it but the skull would defy their efforts the polish of the mitchell-hedges skull is so high it's almost hard to look at under a light microscope because it just bounces back at you because it's so highly polished it's like looking in a mirror the hewlett-packard scientists detected no signs of modern tool marks for Frank Dorland and Anna Mitchell hedges this supported frederick mitchell-hedges claimed that the incredibly polished quartz could only have resulted from hand rubbing with sand and water over many generations there was a further revelation from the hewlett-packard tests that would add to the skulls mystique it displayed so-called piezo electric properties well here's electric it's great work isn't that that piezo electric properties of quartz is one of the properties has made quartz a very important technological material if I take a quartz crystal and I apply pressure to it I squeeze on it really hard I essentially induce an electric charge on this crystal some of the electrons move to one end some to the other and we now have an electric charge on this crystal scientists were well aware that quartz crystal contained electric properties but Frank Dorland believed that crystal through its piezo electric properties could store consciousness which he now claimed for the skull of doom Anna mitchell-hedges paraded the hewlett-packard tests as a triumphant vindication of her account of the skull she kept the skull and began to make startling claims for its powers one was that it could predict global disasters by sweating well it's predicted the one that the two girls were killed in Rhodesia accidentally and it predicted that cutter stuff that happened in Mexico would only earthquake it's a will disaster usually presents not a small thing like an airplane but when it's a tremendous one then it'll show us sweat and a toured with the skull of doom and in 1980 was the star of an episode of the TV series arthur c clarke s-- mysterious world II throw Airport London Miss Anna mitchell-hedges newly arrived from Toronto Canada Anna told her favorite story of how she'd found the skull I went to pick it up because I had smaller hands and the other people did and I picked it up and showed it to my father and he just couldn't believe that we found this beautiful crystal skull as you see it's got all the little lumps that you have on your own head and all that if you look deep down in the eyes you'll see sockets down in the eyes and the jaw moves like a human jaw in the new-age world of alternative lifestyles and spiritualism the skull of doom began to be revered behind it the inspiring figure of Anna Mitchell hedges Chicago 2008 the body-mind-spirit Expo a chance for Crystal Skull devotees from all over the world to get connected and to get a glimpse of the most legendary skull of all I'm hoping to feel the energy that the skull has and I'd like to witness it's bleep are we doing the air to the skull of doom and its current keeper is bill Holman who became animal hedges companion in her old age salad courts crystal skull has so many different faces to it and once you think you know what or understand it all of a sudden it changes and it comes up with a whole new a new array of feelings and and beliefs and everything to the body-mind-spirit Expo offers a feast of modern skulls carved from age-old quartz for some the bigger the better this is star Sirius as 67 pounds of quartz it is a short wave for for spirituality when a person touches it like this it's making a connection it's making a circuit the skull is giving me information I need to know as I'm giving it information it needs to know today at the heart of many devotees belief is the story of the 13 skulls now according to legend there are 13 ancient crystal skulls that were made by beings not from this planet to communicate with us humans and give us knowledge of the ages the legend says the 13 skulls were made by aliens and handed to the people of Atlantis who passed them on to the Maya once United the skulls would reveal the full mysteries of the universe and the sum of all human knowledge this will happen in the year 2012 the end of a 5,000 year cycle in the Mayan calendar some followers claim it's possible to communicate with the skull Abdulle about the other 12 skulls Carol Wilson is a well-known medium in Ontario used by the police to help solve crimes she has conducted séances with the skull of doom in which she says it speaks through her 13:13 this is the oral traditions of many of your native people my concept of the skull is that it's and I didn't have a word for it then but it's a computer without having to it's already programmed and you don't have to type on little Keys when you do is put your hand on and it will answer any question you pose to it Anna mitchell-hedges died in April 2007 she was a hundred years old she far more than her adoptive father Frederick had created the legend of the crystal skulls she'd helped to inspire the movie that would gross over a hundred and twenty million dollars the first weekend it was released Anna insisted till her dying day that her story of the skull of Doom's discovery was true and I heard true the Maya say if you go on top of that building you have a most wonderful view Anna mitchell-hedges had done more than anyone to promote the legend of the crystal skulls and because quartz crystal is impossible to carbon date it seemed no hard scientific evidence could ever refute her story but even as Anna was dying a new generation of scientists using state-of-the-art techniques was subjecting her claims to a more rigorous scrutiny than ever before in 1992 an anonymous package had arrived at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC inside was a previously unknown Crystal Skull I got a call from the curator of the Museum of American history and he asked me if I knew anything about crystal skulls and I said yeah a little why and he said well we just got one in the mail Jane Walsh went to collect the skull and received a dire warning because he had said it was very heavy I stopped off then asked for a cart and they asked me what I needed it for a nice well actually for I'm picking up a Crystal Skull so the person who gave me the cart said well don't look at in the eye and I said why and he said because they're cursed the only evidence about the Smithsonian skull was an accompanying note saying it had been bought in Mexico City in 1960 but it propelled Jane Walsh on a 16-year long quest to find the truth about the crystal skulls she knew that the British Museum in London had a similar crystal skull the museum had bought it in 1897 believing it to have been made by the Aztecs the central Mexican neighbors of the Maya in the late 19th century it certainly would have aroused interest and comfortably fallen with what people would have imagined to be something possibly Aztec or or Mexican for skull devotees the London skull came to be viewed as one of the legendary 13 ancient skulls so too did a crystal skull in a Paris Museum it had been acquired in 1878 again on the understanding that it was an Aztec object in the archives Jayne Walsh discovered a striking coincidence both skulls originally came from the collection of one man a 19th century French dealer in antiquities called Eugene Boban boban story would prove the key to unraveling the mystery of the London and Paris skulls for Jane Walsh the name boban rang an immediate Bell the Smithsonian houses some of his collection we have a few pieces from Eugene Bevin in this cabinet as you can see this is a very typical Aztec chili grinder and it also has Ujima bonds tags on it Jane Walsh headed from Mexico City where Eugene boban lived in the mid 19th century her initial inquiries suggested that boban had set out as a purely amateur collector he found a lot of things he found potsherds he probably found bones but I also think at some point he started to buy things because he became a dealer Boban began to specialize in the Aztecs a Central American civilization which like the Maya had been obsessed with skulls by the mid 19th century more and more Europeans were becoming interested in these ancient American sites and had a growing appetite for Mayan and Aztec relics not surprisingly local craftsmen were soon producing them by request using the grinding wheel the key invention of modern carving the more people came in the larger the demand was so people started fabricating things to sell to these collectors although these people aren't trying to fool anybody they're making reproductions and they're not saying they're you know that they dug that my pet of the ground around 1869 boban now with a reputation as a leading authority in Mexican antiquities returned to Paris where he set up shop it was at this time that the Paris crystal skull first appeared on the scene as part of BOE bonds collection he sold it to a French explorer who donated it to the Trocadero Museum it was the first large Crystal Skull to go on public display and it created a sensation citizen evil equals severely his skull was greeted as an extraordinary discovery dating back to the great ancient civilization of the Aztecs yes fantastic in 1881 a second large crystal skull went on show and Bowman's Paris shop it was listed for thirty-five hundred francs seven hundred dollars but failed to sell boban eventually moved to New York and finally sold his second Crystal Skull to Tiffany's for nine hundred fifty dollars ten years later Tiffany sold it to the British Museum for the same price both of boban skulls were now in prestigious museums in Paris and London and labeled as tech NID we have the museum's display labels of the time which described two scales as great masterpieces from the Aztec era the Crystal death masks as they were called both in London and in Paris it seemed to fit in with what was generally known about skull iconography in the Americas in a fifth could be the fact the two great museums both had these objects meant that each endorse the others antiquity Paris said the British Museum has got one and the British said well Paris has got one too as the decades passed an archaeologists learned more about the Aztecs and Maya the idea that they made crystal skulls seemed less and less credible largely because their sites contained few other Crystal Lodge finally Jane Walsh teamed up with a British Museum scientist Margaret Sachs she would apply state-of-the-art science using electron microscopes that can detect even the tiniest tool marks first to understand ancient American carving techniques margaret sacks examines a crystal goblet that was hand-carved by the Mystics the Aztecs neighbors we wanted to look at objects from welcome annals excavation and this is the largest rock crystal object that's been excavated the tool marks are linear and they occur in random orientations they clearly been made with handheld tools for example a file rubbed repeatedly backwards and forwards over the surface if the London skull is truly ancient it should have similar marks to those on the mish tech goblet a small plastic mold is taken from a part of the skull in this case the corner of the mouth now magnified up to a hundred times tool marks on the mold are finally visible we see here the curvature along the depth of the mouse which is characteristic of of a wheel a disc shaped tool like this so we can imagine the the wheel moving along like this cutting feature the earliest carving wheels only arrived in America long after the Europeans invaded so the Mayans and Aztecs never possessed any such tools there is only one certain conclusion the ancient Americans could not have made the London Crystal Skull modern technology can also reveal where the crystal came from rock crystal usually has small impurities known as inclusions which are specific to the region where the crystal grew and the inclusions in the British Museum skull show that it's origin is nowhere near Central America and the Aztecs and Maya these particular types of inclusions have been reported from quartz from Madagascar and from Brazil the best examples that I've seen in the literature this type of habit this vermiform habit and beam from Madagascar Madagascar started to export rock crystal to France in the late 19th century as did Brazil and no crystal like this has ever been found in Central America the evidence of the inclusions allows us to rule out Mexico as a source for the rock crystal the historical facts point to a date of manufacture for the British Museum skull in the second half of the 19th century recent tests on the Paris cull also show modern tool marks both the London and Paris calls have now been proved to be fakes almost certainly carved in 19th century Europe and brought onto the market by Eugene boban the man who really spawned the fascination with crystal skulls Jayne Walsh now turned to her Smithsonian skull delivered in its anonymous package back in 1992 and took it across the Atlantic for testing by Margaret Saks like the London and Paris calls it shows the marks of a modern carving wheel but there is something even more precise and we found a further clue to the dating of this skull for the date of its manufacture if that might some minut particles are trapped in the natural cavities in the material on one of those we were able to identify by using x-ray diffraction analysis as being composed of silicon carbide silicon carbide is a sludgy substance that can be coated onto a carving wheel to give a brilliantly smooth finish the bonded silicon carbide found on the Smithsonian skull only came into use in the 1950s this sets the date of manufacture in the 1950s a mere 10 years perhaps before the skull was bought in Mexico City Washington London Paris all three skulls of modern origin all three have no connection to the ancient civilizations of Central America which leaves the skull of doom today's guardian of the skull is Bill Holman and a mitchell-hedges longtime companion he still believes it has special ancient properties the Crystal Skull is giving if we believe it from the higher civilization given us this knowledge and this this blessing and how we use it and how it's used today is you know for are either are good or our government and hopefully it's far good Anna mitchell-hedges claimed she found the skull inside a Mayan pyramid during the excavations of the 1920s but in the archives Jane Walsh found a smoking gun this is an article that was published in the British Journal man in July of 1936 and it describes a study that was done in the British Museum on their own crystal skull comparing it to a crystal skull in a private collection that privately owned skull seemed oddly familiar as Jane Walsh looked at the photograph more closely she realized it was exactly the same as another skull she'd seen the skull of doom you can see that it's identical to the mitchell-hedges skull and in fact it is the mitchell-hedges skull but in this 1936 article the skull is not attributed to frederick mitchell-hedges and it's not called the skull of doom it's called the Bernie skull after the man who then owned it an art dealer named Sidney Bernie Bernie kept it at his gallery here in central London in 1943 he took it around the corner to Sotheby's auction house the southern ease auction catalog lists the skull it was withdrawn before the auction and sold for 400 pounds sixteen hundred dollars to one frederick mitchell-hedges nearly 20 years after Anna claimed to have discovered it Anna tried to explain this inconsistency claiming that her father after bringing it back to England had given the skull to Bernie as security for a loan but when I asked Anna Mitchell hedges to clarify this she said well what happened is mr. Bernie was a friend of her father and mr. Bernie promised that he would hold this go until her father could pay back the loan according to Anna her father repaid the loan just before the auction started and retrieved the skull there are further oddities about Anna Mitchell hedges story notably the variation in the dates she gave for her discovery this letter her statement of fact that she found the scholar 19 in the 1926-27 season is in conflict with various other statements she's made in letters in publications on websites shining in my face I've seen the date 1927 1926 1928 1924 mentioned and there's even a newspaper article quoting mitchell-hedges himself saying that he found it in the 1930s the ultimate test for the skull of doom would be to subject it to the same examination as the London Paris and Washington skulls after Anna's death bill Holman decided to put it under the microscope upon the outcome a legend would stand or fall so in April 2008 the skull of Doom's keeper brings the skull to the Smithsonian Institution for testing by the latest microscope technology first molds are taken from intricate parts of the skull we were trying to see the sides of this hole to see if we can see what kind of tool was used to cut through that and that may be a little problematic to mount what do you think Scott the electron microscope analysis is finally about to reveal the truth of the skull of doom where you see fairly cleanly sharply-defined marks with these beautifully paralleled striations that I would think are permanently adhered diamond abrasive because quartz is very hard in order to cut through it very cleanly and sharply you need some very hard to break this is not this is not cutting this is more polishing what we're seeing or is this cutting that's cutting that's cutting okay those marks right here the tools that made these marks did not exist until the end of the 19th century probably the kinds of very fine carving tools that artists use and but also the kind of mechanized tools that were available even to dentists by the turn of the century the discovery of modern tool marks is powerful scientific evidence that Anna Mitchell hedges fabricated her famous story but for true believers like Bill Holman it proves only how the skull was made not by whom or when he believes the marks indicate tools so sophisticated that they could not have been in use before the skulls first documented appearance in the 1930s maybe in some people's minds it looks like you know that it it's putting in a period of being modern but when you look at the real what it really shows the quality the workmanship the time the and the that went into it it shows that in 1920s there would be no one around that would put the time into or have the ability or the equipment to do that if that's the case the believers in the legend of the crystal skulls continue to point to some extraterrestrial origin as the only explanation if these primitive cultures could not possibly duplicate what we're seeing with the ancient skulls then where did they come from maybe they were done by some advanced culture that use lasers to precisely cut the skulls which would be an Atlantis but could it possibly be that they were the gifts from the gods because this is what the Mayans talk about they say the grandfathers from the Pleiades brought them the crystal skulls while this is implying a contact with an extraterrestrial race that's not native to the earth but the science is certain the skull of doom was made by humans in the early 20th century so why did Anna mitchell-hedges invent her story and continue to embellish it excavated for about seven years clear in the ground and then one day we spotted something shining through the stones and that was my 17th birthday and it predicted that kinda stuff that happened in Mexico would all live earthquake and when she was 89 Ana went back to lubaantun by then she had perhaps convinced herself that her story of the skulls discovery was indeed true and we shall attack doing it again the nicest thought of my life less I dream a lot about it I don't know yeah there's always people saying did she find her didn't she find it it might not have been exactly as she she says only for the fact is that you know I tried to remember something back 10 years and tried to put it in the right order in the time and it's really hard to do I believe Anna Mitchell hedges always believed which she said her father loved playing practical jokes on people and if there was any delusion in all of this it might have been perpetrated by her father just too as part of his way with her but she believed it was real could Frederick mitchell-hedges have planted the skull in the Mayan pyramid for Anna to find perhaps as a birthday present that theory now seems highly unlikely the combined evidence of the tools that shape the skull and the date of its first documented appearance suggests it must have been made after Anna claimed to have found it in Lebon tune Jane Walsh has another interpretation for Anna's inventiveness it goes back to the period just after Frederick's death when Anna was trying to export the skull along with other pieces from his collection from Britain to North America to sell them she was trying to support herself she had these objects that may or may not have been valuable and there's a point at which she's already applied for some kind of a permit from the British government to take this piece out of the country for research and I suspect she had to say that it belonged to her so I think that may be where she started to say that she found it for over a century legend of the crystal skulls has intrigued millions and inspired Hollywood the evidence now shows that the famous skulls in three of the world's great museums and the skull of doom itself were part of one of archaeology's greatest frauds anna mitchell-hedges story was one of its greatest fabrications science has revealed how the crystal skulls were made but we may never know exactly why or by whom for crystal skull devotees their supernatural power remains exquisite carvings alluring and mysterious to the end

Channel: Entertainment4u

Views: 1,857,063

Rating: 4.3688221 out of 5

Keywords: Legend, of, the, Crystal, Skulls

Id: xxEmA1rTQdk

Length: 46min 58sec (2818 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 08 2011

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[u/Em_Adespoton]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantis_Found

To separate fiction from fact. The fiction's a fun read, btw.