Hidden History: Lost Civilizations, Secret Knowledge, and Ancient Mysteries (37 page)

The fearsome Skull of Doom is a lifesize rock which weighs around 11
pounds, 7 ounces, 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 artifact are shrouded in
mystery, and as a result, the MitchellHedges 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 center at
Lubaantun, 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. Only
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.

Doubts were cast on this romantic
story with the discovery that MitchellHedges 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 in 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, MitchellHedges 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 artifact 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 artifact is
none other than Hedges' Skull of
Doom, obviously then the property of
art dealer Sidney Burney. Nowhere in
the article is there mention of its discovery at the Mayan ruins of Lubaatun,
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 Rockcrystal 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." Troubling evidence indeed, though it merely casts doubt on Hedges' story,
not on the authenticity 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 the Crystal Skull
can be traced back to Mitchell-Hedges
1954 autobiography Danger My Ally,
where the artifact 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 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.

On the death of Mitchell-Hedges in
1959, the skull was passed on to his
adopted daughter Anna, and it remained in her possession until 1964,
when she loaned it to family friends
and art conservators Frank and Mabel
Dorland to make a detailed scientific
study. When not being studied, the
skull was kept in a bank vault for

security, but on one occasion when the
couple took the object home and placed
it close to the fire, they noticed the
amazing optical effects produced by
the skull when light was shone through
it. Some stories also mention poltergeist activity taking place while the
skull remained in the house. In 1970,
Frank Dorland took the skull to the
Hewlett-Packard Laboratories at
Santa Clara, California (at that time
one of the world leaders in electronics, computers, and electronic quartz
technology). After testing the skull,
Hewlett-Packard Laboratories stated
that they could find no microscopic
marks on the crystal which would indicate it had been worked with metal
instruments. Apparently the lab also
stated that the skull had been carved
against the natural grain of the crystal, and were at a loss to know why it
hadn't shattered during manufacture.
From this, Dorland concluded that the
original quartz block must have been
first chiselled into a rough shape, possibly using diamonds, before grinding
and polishing with water and sand.
This painstakingly slow job would, according to Dorland, have required up
to 300 years to complete, doubling the
already exaggerated claims for the creation of the object, and involving manufacture over several generations.

The mystery surrounding the provenance of the Skull of Doom and how
it was manufactured have convinced
many that a superhuman agency must
have been at work. Perhaps the crystal is as much as 36,000 years old and
was left behind after the destruction
of lost lands such as Lemuria
or Atlantis? F.A. Mitchell-Hedges
thought so, and his daughter Anna herself believes the skull original
came from another planet and was
kept in Atlantis before being brought
to the Mayan site of Luubantun. A
number of people have used the skull
for scrying (using a crystal or a pool of
water to induce visions) and have reportedly had detailed visions of ancient civilizations. Others have noted
the spontaneous appearance and disappearance of strange colors inside
the crystal, or even holographic images. Weird sounds and poltergeist
activity have also been associated with
the skull, and a number of people have
testified to its magical and healing
powers. A Native American legend
tells of 13 ancient crystal skulls with
moveable jaws, which are able to speak
or sing. According to this legend, when
all 13 are found and brought together,
their collective wisdom-which includes the true purpose and destiny
of mankind-will be made available
to the world. Many are convinced that
the Skull of Doom is one of these 13
stones.

Over the years, Anna MitchellHedges has toured several cities in the
United States with the skull, charging
an admission fee to see and touch the
famous artifact. She still maintains
that she and her father found the skull
in Lubaatun, and claims that after the
expedition F.A. Mitchell-Hedges had
placed the skull with Burney as security for a loan. When her father realized that Burney was attempting to
sell the crystal, he immediately bought
it back.

Although to some, the MitchellHedges skull appears much more lifelike than the generally stylized art of
South America, it is believed by many
researchers that the skull is of Aztec

or Mayan origin, due to the importance
of the skull in their iconography and
known examples of Aztec rock crystal
work. Although there is no evidence
of the Mitchell-Hedges Skull, or any
other crystal skull, having being found
on a South American archaeological
site, an Aztec origin seems at the moment to be the best hypothesis. The
skull is thought to have been used as a
speaking oracle, with the separate jaw
attached to the head using wire and
perhaps operated by a priest to give
the impression that it was speaking.
With the crystal reflecting the light of
a fire lit behind it, this would have
been an uncanny spectacle.

But the intriguing tale of the Skull
of Doom does not end there. When the
Mitchell-Hedges skull was first studied in 1936, another crystal skull,
known simply as the British Museum
Skull, was used alongside it for comparison. This crystal had been obtained
in 1897 from Tiffany's, the New York
jewelers, and was thought to be of Aztec origin. The study was made by anthropologist Dr. G.M. Morant, who
found that the two skulls were dissimilar in one or two ways. For instance,
the British Museum Skull was made
in one piece, without a detachable jaw,
and the Burney Skull (which is how
the anthropologist refers to the
Mitchell-Hedges Skull) was much
more lifelike and finely detailed than
the other. However, in the conclusion
of his study of the two crystal skulls,
Dr.G.M. Morant states "it is safe to
conclude that they are representations
of the same human skull, though one
may have been copied from the other."
He believed that, because it showed
more anatomical detail, the Burney Skull was the earlier of the two and
had been modeled on a woman's skull.

In January 2005 came the sensational news that after an extensive
series of tests on the British Museum
Skull, using a scanning electron microscope, a team of researchers from the
British Museum concluded that the
artifact was in fact manufactured in
the 19th century, probably in Germany.
The investigations showed markings
on the crystal characteristic of
jeweler's equipment not developed
until the 19th century, and it is now
believed that the skull was created for
the French collector Eugene Boban,
who subsequently sold it to Tiffany's.
Boban was a dealer in antiques in
Mexico City between 1860 and 1880,
and seems to have obtained his skulls
from somewhere in Germany. In 1992
the Smithsonian Institution received
a crystal skull from an unnamed person who claimed that it was Aztec and
had been purchased in Mexico City in
1960. However, research at the
Smithsonian revealed that the carving
had been done by a wheel, or a rotary
saw, tools which no pre-Columbian
carvers possessed. Researcher Jane
MacLaren Walsh, of the Smithsonian,

discovered documents that proved
Boban was the source of this skull. Not
only this, but further research found
that Boban had also provided several
other supposedly ancient crystal
skulls, some of which had ended up in
various museums, including a skull
formerly in Paris in the Musee de
l'Homme, now in held in the Trocadero
Museum in Paris. All of these skulls
were actually manufactured in Germany between 1867 and 1886.

While the presence of 19th century
fake crystal skulls does not necessarily affect the genuineness of the Skull
of Doom, it does cast doubt on the supposed ancient origins of the number
of untested crystal skulls that currently exist around the world, mostly
in private collections. Many researchers wonder why Anna Mitchell-Hedges
refuses to submit her crystal skull for
scanning electron microscope testing,
which, although it would not provide
an exact date for the object (all crystal
is ancient and there are no methods
for dating it), it would surely prove
whether this enigmatic masterpiece
was of relatively recent manufacture,
of possibly Mayan or Aztec origin, or
something else entirely.

Part of the Herbal section of the Voynich Manuscript.