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The Mystery of the Crystal Skulls
Made by: Karan Chahal, Wyatt Chilton, Nathan Johns and Andrew Williamson

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Description
This very detailed article by The British Museum talks about their crystal skull that they obtained from the Tiffany and corporation. Once obtained by The British Museum it was beloved to be an ancient Mexican artifact but was later proven to be produced in the nineteenth century Europe. The museum used scientific tests to reveal the tools that might have been used to construct the skull and identify where the crystal would have come from. The tools used would have not existed in America yet and the amount and purity of the crystal could have only been found in Europe. The article also talks about the other crystal skulls that have been found and are on display such as the larger then realistic one the Smithsonian holds in Washington DC.

Connection
This article connects to the course in many ways. Firstly, we can identify the red flag unexplained because no one knows the real purpose of why these skulls where created. Some believe that they where created for art, but others say they where created by aliens. Also, another red flag would be mystical energy because people believe that they hold magical powers such as healing, emitting energy, hold special powers, and hold repositories of ancient knowledge

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What is it?

A life-size carving of a human skull made from a single block of rock crystal (a clear, colourless variety of quartz). It was acquired by the Museum in 1897 purporting to be an ancient Mexican object. However, scientific research conducted by the Museum has established that the skull was most likely produced in the nineteenth century in Europe. As such the object is not an authentic pre-Columbian artefact.

How did it enter the collection?

The skull was purchased by the Museum from Tiffany and Co, New York in 1897. At the time of its purchase, the skull was said to have been brought from Mexico by a Spanish officer before the French occupation (in 1863). It was sold to an English collector and acquired at his death by Eugène Boban, a French antiquities dealer, later becoming the property of Tiffany and Co. The skull was exhibited for many years at the Museum of Mankind in Piccadilly (which housed the British Museum's Ethnographic collection), it is currently on permanent display at the British Museum in the Wellcome Trust Gallery.

What scientific research has been undertaken?

The British Museum has examined the skull several times between 1950 and 1990. In 1996, a collaborative project focusing on the British Museum's skull and a skull in the collection of the Smithsonian Institute, Washington DC was started. Contrary to popular belief, there are no satisfactory scientific techniques which can be used to accurately establish when a stone object was carved. Research has therefore focused on how the skulls were carved, where the quartz originated from and what is known about the early history of the skulls. Observations made with a binocular microscope and in a scanning electron microscope show that the techniques used to carve the skulls post date the ancient Aztec period. The tool marks on the skulls are very different to those on ancient Mexican rock crystal objects, which were carved by hand. The British Museum skull was extensively worked with lathe-mounted rotary wheels (jeweller's wheels), which were unknown in the Americas before the arrival of the Europeans. The research also shows that the large block of rock crystal suitable for the British Museum skull did not come from a source within the ancient trade network of Mexico. It is likely to have originated from a source in Brazil or Madagascar. The results of this research have been published in the Journal of Archaeological Science and are available online: Sax, M., Walsh, J.M., Freestone, I.C., Rankin, A.H. and Meeks, N.D., Journal of Archaeological Science (2008).

Do others exist?

There is a larger white quartz skull in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC and a number of other large skulls in private ownership. There are also a number of smaller rock crystal skulls. Rock crystal skulls first began to surface in public and private collections, during the second half of the nineteenth century, and an increasing number of large and small quartz skulls have become known in recent decades, mostly in private hands. However, no such skull has ever been reported from well-documented official archaeological excavation. Archival research has, in addition, produced a link between the British Museum's skull and another rock crystal skull (in the Musée du Quai Branly, Paris). Both skulls passed through the hands of the French dealer Eugène Boban, raising suspicions regarding their provenance.

Why were the skulls produced?

It is impossible to be sure why all the skulls were produced. Some may have been produced to satisfy demands in the US and Europe in the nineteenth century when interest in collecting Mexican material was at its height. Others are said to be examples of colonial Mexican art, for use in churches, perhaps as bases for crucifixes.

Are there any genuine Aztec crystal skulls?

It seems unlikely, since no quartz crystal skull has ever been found on any of the many well-documented official archaeological excavations of ancient sites.

Did the Aztecs make these kinds of objects?

Skulls and skull imagery featured in Aztec art at the time of the first contact with the Spanish in 1519. They were worked by Aztec, Mixtec and even Mayan craftsmen, and a human skull covered with turquoise mosaics is displayed in the Mexican gallery of the British Museum. Skulls and skull imagery also feature in architectural elements, carved in relief in basalt or limestone, but objects of this kind were not produced in rock crystal or white quartz.

Do they have special powers?

There are some who claim that crystal skulls have healing qualities, emit energy, have the ability to convey vital information or are repositories of ancient wisdom. Large quartz crystal skulls have generated great interest and fascination since they began to surface in public and private collections during the second half of the nineteenth century. The British Museum views the skull in its collection as an enigmatic object of great interest but with no supernatural properties.

What is the British Museum's response to the new movie?

As entertainment the movie will surely appeal to the public, but it is very much a work of fiction. We hope, however, that it will encourage visitors to see the skull at the British Museum and to learn more about Aztec culture.

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indiana jones and the kingdom of the crystal skull

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A life-size carving of a human skull made from a single block of rock crystal (a clear, colourless variety of quartz). It was acquired by the Museum in 1897 purporting to be an ancient Mexican object. However, scientific research conducted by the Museum has established that the skull was most likely produced in the nineteenth century in Europe.

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Description

This article talks about on of the most famous crystal skulls found called the “Skull of Doom”. This skull was discovered by “Mitchell-Hedges” and his adopted daughter “Anna Mitchell-Hedges”. They where exploring the ruins of a Mayan ceremony center when Anna on her 17th birthday stumbled across the skull in the ground by an alter. But it was then later found out that the skull was purchased from a art gallery for 400 euros. Its said that the skull is based off of the skull that is in The British Museum. The discovery of the skull was vagally written about in his book to which he called it “The skull of Doom”.  The skull was alleged to have many powers and many sinister legends but that can now all be traced back to Mitchell-Hedges.
Connection

This relates to the course material because the article references mystical energy as well as appeal to authority. In Mitchell-Hedges autobiography “Danger My Ally” Mitchell writes that the skull was used by a Mayan High Priest when performing magic rites involving a death curse, which would cause the demise of the victim. The article relates to appeal to authority because the skull its self was just a fake bought from a art collector but Mitchell used his title as an explorer to try to convince people that he had discovered this mystical and very dangerous skull.

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'Crystal skulls' are enigmatic and controversial objects. Believed by some to be ancient artifacts with extraordinary magical and healing properties, and dismissed by others as relatively modern forgeries, there is no agreement about their origins. Some researchers have claimed that there are thirteen crystal skulls located in various secret places around the world, only five of which have so far been located.

Crystal skulls themselves are models of human skulls carved from clear quartz crystal, and the examples so far recovered vary in size from a few inches to the size of a human head. Where the skulls originated or what they were used for is a mystery, but an origin with the pre-Columbian cultures of South America, such as the Aztecs and Maya, has been suggested for many of them. In Mesoamerican cultures like the Aztec these artefacts were known as 'skull masks' or 'death heads'. Without doubt the most fascinating and puzzling of these crystal skulls is the 'Mitchell-Hedges Skull', which possesses an eerie, alluring beauty, unequalled in other examples. This mysterious object has been the topic of conversation for many people all over the world, like the children who heard of a mysterious crystal skull from their parents to the dutiful student studying online for his masters in political science. Even the working professional who has received their online MBA degree and is now working in a completely irrelevant field.

The baffling story of the 'Skull of Doom', as this artefact has become known, is almost as strange as the object itself.

The 'Mitchell-Hedges Skull of Doom'

'The Skull of Doom is a life-size rock which weighs around 5.19kg (11 lb, 7 oz) and is beautifully carved from a single clear quartz crystal. The skull features a fitted detachable jaw, which would allow for movement as if the head was speaking. Apart from small flaws in the temples and cheekbone it is an anatomically correct model of a human skull. The origins and discovery of this enigmatic artefact are shrouded in a thick fog of mystery; consequently the Mitchell-Hedges Skull has no confirmed provenance. The story goes that in 1927 (or possibly 1924) English explorer and adventurer F.A. Mitchell-Hedges (1882-1959) was investigating the ruins of a Mayan ceremonial centre at Lubaantun ("Place of the Fallen Stones") Belize, as part of his search for the lost site of Atlantis. With Mitchell-Hedges on this expedition was his adopted daughter Anna Mitchell-Hedges. On Anna's 17th birthday she was wandering around the site, when she found the top part of the rock crystal skull, underneath what appeared to be an altar.

Three months later, in the same room, the jaw part of the skull was discovered. After seeing the reaction of the locals to this strange discovery Mitchell-Hedges apparently offered this skull to them. But later, as he and his party were about to depart from the area, the local high priest gave the skull to Mitchell-Hedges as a gift, in gratitude for the food, medicine and clothing the explorer had given to his people.

Severe doubts were cast on this romantic story with the discovery that Mitchell-Hedges had in fact bought the skull for £400 at Sotheby's, London, in 1943, from Sidney Burney, the owner of an art gallery. This would tie up with the fact that Mitchell-Hedges inexplicably makes no mention of the skull in the various newspaper articles on Atlantis which he authored in the 1930s, and the lack of photographs of the exotic artifact among those taken on his Lubaatun expedition.

In fact Mitchell-Hedges did not write anything about the skull until 1954, when he devoted only a few vague lines to it in his book Danger My Ally, the first time he mentions the Crystal Skull since its alleged discovery in 1927. Perhaps this was why Hedges wrote about the Skull of Doom 'how it came to be in my possession I have reason for not revealing.' Further evidence against Hedges discovering the artefact in Belize is provided in the July 1936 issue of Man, the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. This issue of the journal contains an article about a study carried out of two crystal skulls, one from the British Museum, and the other called the 'Burney Skull'. This latter artefact is none other than Hedges' Skull of Doom, obviously at the time the property of art-dealer Sidney Burney. Nowhere in the article is there mention of its discovery at the Mayan ruins of Lubaantun or of F.A. Mitchell-Hedges.

In his book Secrets of the Supernatural, author Joe Nickell makes reference to a letter from Burney to the American Museum of Natural History, written in 1933. In the letter Burney states 'the Rock-crystal Skull was for several years in the possession of the collector from whom I bought it and he in his turn had it from an Englishman in whose collection it had been also for several years, but beyond that I have not been able to go.' Damming evidence indeed, though it merely casts doubt on Hedges' story not on the genuineness of the skull itself. Whatever reason Hedges had for concocting the exotic tale, it was not his first, and he seems to have had a reputation for tall stories, which included sharing a room with Leon Trotsky and fighting with Pancho Villa.

Many of the allegedly supernatural properties and sinister legends now associated with this Crystal Skull can be traced back to Mitchell-Hedges 1954 autobiography Danger My Ally, where the artefact first acquired its title the 'Skull of Doom'. In this book Hedges describes the skull as being used by a Mayan High Priest when performing magic rites involving a death curse, which invariably produced the demise of the intended victim. Such was the horrifying power of the skull that even if left alone it still had the ability to cause instant death. Mitchell-Hedges also stated in his book that the skull had taken an incredible 150 years to manufacture and was at least 3,600 years old. Though he provided no evidence to back up these assertions, it has become part of the folklore attached the Skull of Doom that it must have taken hundreds of years to manufacture, the makers rubbing and polishing every day of their lives to achieve the perfect shape.

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'Crystal skulls' are enigmatic and controversial objects. Believed by some to be ancient artifacts with extraordinary magical and healing properties, and dismissed by others as relatively modern forgeries, there is no agreement about their origins. Some researchers have claimed that there are thirteen crystal skulls located in various secret places around the world, only five of which have so far been located.

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Description

In this article it talks about the Mayans and the 13 skulls. It talks about how the 13 skulls will be reunited to awaken a new era, transforming from an old paradigm into a new world. Its says how each skull contains complete depositories of knowledge and each skull contains a specialist area of information. The people of the future will be able to read the skulls to extract all the information they hold but in order to do that they must all be reunited.

Connection

Once again, the article reveals mystical energy and Ideology. It is believed that each skull holds its own library of knowledge and wisdom that have astounding energy radiating off them. Also, because the Mayan calendar has run out of days it marks the start of the new era, so the Mayans have a goal to bring the skulls together to collect the ancient wisdom.

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kingdom of the crystal skull
13 crystal skulls legend

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Elements of the 13 CRYSTAL SKULLS legend ... This thirteenth skull represents the collective consciousness of all the worlds. It connects up the knowledge of all the sacred planets.

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Description
This video shows the legend of the crystal skulls. Most importantly it focuses on one of the thirteen skulls. The skull of doom is shown in the video as archaeologist describe how they came about it and how amazing the skull truly is.

Connection
This video relates to the course content in the case of ideology. There are 13 skulls but the video focus on the one skull “the skull of doom”. It is believed to have great power some say, but there is no evidence of it showing power It all comes down to an idea. A red flag shown is unexplained. No one truly knows how the skulls got to earth or what they were for, but the video suggested that it was created by ancient American civilization obsessed with human sacrifice.

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Reflection

What surprised us most about the topic is that none of the skulls in museums come from documented excavations. This is interesting because they have such legends of power behind them, and they're in museums but it seems that they got there based on legend alone.

This is interesting because museums are normally curated with authentic verified artifacts of old, and pride themselves in being accurate and authentic. The museums have done their respective tests on the skulls and determined that they are all non-authentic, however in popular museums they remain. It's almost unsettling that these are allowed to be in museums, as normally people expect museums to have authenticity.

We found the research by the British museum to be the most interesting, as they publicly admit that the skull was manufactured somewhere in Europe in the 18th or 19th century making it non-authentic.

We're likely to remember that though the research they have posted confirms the skull is non-authentic and has no supernatural powers, however the museum chooses to display this as "an enigmatic object of great interest but with no supernatural properties." In the future will be wiser than assuming artifacts in museums are authentic.

Based on the course content and outside resources, we think that the pseudoscience beliefs of Mystical Energy/Ancient Wisdom/ All natural are the most harmful when associated with medical practices. In an age of modern medicine when people choose not to vaccinate, get proper treatments, use "alternative medicines" based on any of the stated beliefs, they are not only threatening their own lives, and the lives of their children but also the general public as specifically non-vaxxers threaten herd immunity. These reasons can be linked back through antivaxxers to the recent measles outbreak.

The most important thing to pass on is undoubtedly the need to be skeptical, and to critically think, in order to make educated choices. This will apply to everything from commercials and news articles, to the essential oils their coworker is diffusing for "healing energy." If we abandon facts out of convenience,  what do we have?

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Description
The video goes on about all 13 skulls and what they all do. Most people state that it holds great power in this video and that in the wrong hands it could go bad for the world. Later on in the video they go on to debunk the whole theory of the crystal skull

Connection
Once again the videos main topics are unexplained and ideology. This is a big part of the crystal skulls as there are so many stories and belief on how they came about. The critical thinking process would be very useful in this situation so they can discover more reasons to why these skulls are here, and what they truly do. By applying the critical thinking processes we could understand more about the skulls.  Applying skepticism would be very useful when talking about the crystal skulls. The daughter of Mitchell the archaeologist who found the skull went on tour with it to make money as this was an appeal to authority. Once she passed away the skull was taken for research and was shown to be fake.

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for more information and for the sources see the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=EmVIJbD2ecY

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Description
This brief video lets you know the history of the skulls and how they were found. It lets you know where they think they were created and how they were created with certain tools.

Connection
This video relates to the course material because the video references the skull of doom, and how it has powers to cure diseases and tell the future this is related to mystical energy that the skull possess. Once again ideology is shown in the video as it says that they believe the skull showed the future for John F Kennedy's assassination. They also believe that the skull holds power to manipulate the worlds energy and store it inside the skull which is all based of an idea.

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Description

According to an old native american legend there are 13 crystal skulls that are supposedly containing crucial information about the true purpose of humanity and the destiny of its people It also says that humanity is to discover the skulls when it is sufficiently developed. Of course the true origin of such skulls is still unknown and it is believed that it could be alien or even from a lost civilization such as Atlantis.
Connection

The connection between this and what we’ve learned would be ancient knowledge and the unexplained as it goes on about these supposedly ancient relics being capable of telling the future of humanity but as far as humanity is aware there isn’t a for this to be possible. Ancient mayans have had such things ingrained into their culture and it has led them to the belief that such powers are real and are capable of magical things that can’t be explained

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Among Native Healers These skulls are Believed to have supernatural healing powers and in some of their more ritualistic healing methods if they had access to them they would use the skulls to Grant Blessing capable of healing illnesses that Modern medicine is yet to even cure. Though there is no actual evidence to the skulls having such powers they are tied deeply to rumors and some legends as to being capable of such things.

Connection

The connections in this would be Mystical Energies and ideology. The Mystical Energies belief would come for its ability to grant supernatural healing even though under study they seem to be ordinary crystal carved into the shape of a skull. The ideology belief would come from the natives believing that these crystal skulls have some connection to a higher power to grant such blessing on to people as the skulls have become a part of their cultures and beliefs.

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According to studies done on the skulls that have been found its been discovered that they may not be as ancient as once thought. According to such studies on the skulls they may only be as old as 50-150 years old. Even though research have difficulties telling how such things were made they also have a hard time believing that such skulls could have been made by tribals or ancients because of the quality of the skulls in ways that they don’t have the little scratches and marks that something made in those time would have due to the poor qualities of tools as well as them having no real powers some researchers believe they could have just been made for artistic sake.

Connection

The connection to this would be the use of critical thinking and skepticism to discover what truly lies behind the skulls. Though they never came to a true conclusion on when, why, or how the skulls were made one thing widely accepted by most researchers is that the skulls themselves aren’t ancient. Even though the conclusion they came to was that skulls weren’t as old as believed they never truly ruled out that these skull held some kind of mystic power that has yet to be discovered.