The 13 Crystal Skulls – with photo’s

One of archaeology’s most compelling mysteries is that of the 13 Crystal Skulls.  Skulls have been one of the most powerful objects of symbolism in human history, all over the world.  Several “perfect” crystal Skulls have been found in parts of Mexico, Central and South America.  Together, they form a mystery as enigmatic as the Nazca Lines, the Great Pyramids and Stonehenge. 

These skulls are believed to be between 5000 and 35000 years old.  During early expeditions, archaeologists were told by locals that the skulls possessed magical powers and healing properties.  However, people were unsure as to where they came from, or even why they existed.  Some like to believe that these were remains from the lost civilization of Atlantis.  Others like to believe these are fakes.  And yet another group of psychics believe that these skulls have the capability to enable us to look into the past, present and future.

Historians and social anthropologists decided to find out more about the strange skulls. Very soon, they came across an ancient Indian legend saying that there had been thirteen crystal skulls of the Goddess of Death; they had been kept separately from each other under the strict control of pagan priests and special warriors.

Searches for more skulls started; some of them were found in museums and some in private collections not only in the USA, but in Mexico, Brazil, France, Mongolia, and in Tibet. There were more than 13 skulls found. However, not all of them were as perfect as Mitchell-Hedges- was. Very likely, those were just later attempts to create something similar to the original skulls that were believed to have been gifts by God to the people.

The very construction and make of the skulls defies common logic.  There are several crystal skulls in existence today around the world.  We start off with the most famous one: The Mitchell-Hedges Skull.

As the story goes, the skull was first discovered by the expedition headed by famous English archeologist F. Albert Mitchell-Hedges in Central America in 1927. Before that, the archeologist started clearing an ancient Maya settlement in a damp tropical jungle in Yucatan (British Honduras at that time and currently Belize) in 1924. It was decided to burn down 33 hectares of forest covering the ancient constructions of the settlement to make the archeological dig easier. When the smoke lifted, the expedition saw amazing ruins of a stone pyramid, city walls, and a huge amphitheatre capable to seating thousands of spectators. The ancient settlement was called Lubaantun: The Place of the Fallen Stones. 

After three years, Mitchell-Hedges organized another expedition; he took his daughter Anna with him, but, at that moment, the archeologist hardly supposed that the girl would be a lucky talisman for the expedition. On the day of her 17th birthday, in April 1927, Anna discovered a strange item under the debris of an ancient altar. That was a natural sized human skull made of a rock crystal and wonderfully polished. The skull lacked its lower jaw, which was found dozens meters from the site three months later. The crystal details could be moved with the help of perfect, smooth joints on the skull and easily moved with every touch. Those who touched the skull experienced rather strange feelings.

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, but the origin of which is attributed to Central America.  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.

Continuing, Anna was the first to experience strange things. The girl put the skull near her bed before going to sleep. Anna said that she dreamed of the life of Indians who had lived thousands years ago, and the girl could describe the dream in detail.

At first, Anna didn’tt attribute the strange dream to the crystal skull. However, strange dreams haunted the girl each time she had the skull near her bed. New dreams brought more new details about the life of Indians, details unknown even to scientists. When the skull was removed from the bedroom, there were no strange dreams. And they recommenced as soon as the strange find was taken back to Anna’s room. The girl heard Indians talking and watched their everyday life and sacrifice rituals.

After the death of her father, at the beginning of the 1960s, Anna decided to give the strange skull to scientists for investigations. She believed that the skull was too perfect to have been made by the Indian civilizations living before the Columbus discoveries.

First, art critic Frank Dordland started investigating the strange skull. After a closer investigation, he discovered that the skull had a complicated system of lenses, prisms, and channels, creating unusual optical effects. The investigator was surprised to discover no signs of processing on the skull’s perfectly polished surface. They couldn’t be seen even with a microscope. Frank Dordland even addressed Hewlett-Packard, the famous company that specialized in crystal oscillators at that time, for a competent examination of the crystal.

The results were shocking not only for the scientist himself. The research by Hewlett-Packard in 1964 in a special laboratory revealed that the skull had been made long before the first civilizations appeared in that part of America where the skull was found. In addition, rock crystal of such perfect quality couldn’tt be found in that area. The most amazing thing was that the ancient skull weighing 5.13 kg, 203.4 mm long and 125.4 wide had been made of a whole crystal. This fact contradicted the laws of physics.

Hewlett-Packard experts analyzed the skull and discovered that it consisted of three or four joints grown together. After close analysis, they found out that the skull had been cut of one piece of crystal, together with the lower jaw. The rock crystal has a hardness that is slightly lower than that of topaz, corundum, and diamond; it can be cut with diamonds only. It is astonishing, but the ancient Indians managed to cut it somehow, and even made a lower jaw with the joints. Someone had made the skull of a whole crystal so carefully that it seemed that nobody had ever touched it. A kind of a prism was found at the back bottom of the skull; any ray of light that strikes the eye-sockets is reflected there. If you look into the eye-sockets, you may see the whole room reflected.

Hewlett-Packard experts say that the skull had been made regardless of all laws and rules. They surprisingly said: “The damned thing can’t exist at all. Those who had done it had no idea of crystallography or of fiber optics. The people completely ignored the axis of symmetry, which was to prevent the crystal from splitting during processing. It is strange why it didn’t split at that!” No matter how unbelievable it may seem, the strange crystal skull can be seen in the Museum of American Indians.

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.

The Mitchell-Hedges Skull:

There is a pair of similar skulls known as the British Crystal Skull and the Paris Crystal Skull. Both are said to have been bought by mercenaries in Mexico in the 1890s, possibly at the same time. They are so similar in size and shape that some have guessed that one was copied to produce the other. In comparison to the Mitchell-Hedges skull, they are made of cloudier clear crystal and are not nearly as finely sculpted. The features are superficially etched and appear incomplete, without discretely formed jawbones. The British Crystal Skull is on display at London’s Museum of Mankind, and the Trocadero Museum of Paris houses the Paris Crystal Skull. 

These were discovered in the early part of the 20th century in Guatamala and Mexico.  They had been brought to the US by a Mayan Priest. The Amethyst Skull is made of purple quartz and the Mayan skull is clear, but the two are otherwise very alike. Like the Mitchell-Hedges skull, both of them were studied at Hewlett-Packard, and they too were found to be inexplicably cut against the axis of the crystal. 

In the early 1980s, a human-sized quartz crystal skull surfaced in Texas. It was in the possession of Norbu Chen, a Tibetan healer. The skull was given to Carl and Jo Ann Parks to satisfy a debt. The skull was placed in a cosmetic case and stored on the floor of a closet in their Houston home for several years. It was while Jo Ann Parks was watching television that she realized that her skull may be an important artifact. 

The program was about the Mitchell-Hedges skull, and F.R. Nick Nocerino, a world-renowned expert in crystal skull research, was a guest on the show. After viewing the program, Jo Ann, contacted Nocerino, upon which he traveled to Houston from his home near San Francisco to examine the skull. He determined that the skull was authentic and that it was ancient. He had indeed been aware of the existence of the skull, but had not been able to determine its location. Soon after Nocerino’s visit, Jo Ann, after several discussions with the rock, as she fondly referred to it, was told its name was Max.

“Max,” or the Texas Crystal Skull, is a single-piece, clear skull, weighing 18 pounds.  The origin is believed to be Guatemala.  The Parks family allows visitors to observe Max and they display the skull at various exhibitions across the U.S.

Also in the mid 80s, Joke van Dieten Maasland, who presently resides in Miami Beach, Florida, acquired a smokey quartz crystal skull from a dealer in Los Angeles. It was reported that this skull had been in the possession of a family in Guatemala, whose parents found the skull in 1906, while excavating a Mayan Temple. Joke credits the skull, which she calls E.T., as instrumental in a personal healing of a brain tumor. She shares the story in her book, Messengers of Ancient Wisdom. 

“ET” is a smoky quartz skull originally found in the early 20th Century in Central America. It was given its nickname because its pointed cranium and exaggerated overbite make it look like the skull of an alien being. ET is part of the private collection of Joke Van Dietan, who tours with her skulls to share the healing powers she believes they possess.

The only known crystal skull that comes close to resembling the Mitchell-Hedges skull is one called the Rose Quartz Crystal Skull, which was reported near the border of Honduras and Guatemala. It is not clear in color and is slightly larger than the Mitchell-Hedges, but boasts a comparable level of craftsmanship, including a removable mandible. 

The Museum of Man, in London, contains a crystal skull which is called the Aztec Skull. It is no longer on display in that museum. Museum personnel as well as visitors claim the skull moves on its own within the glass case in which it is enclosed. It was acquired by the museum at the turn of the century from an antiquity dealer in New York.  I’ve also heard that workers demanded the skull case be draped over by a cloth at night so that they could work around it in peace. 

The Paris museum of Man also contains a crystal skull called The Aztec Skull, which is no longer on display. Both the Paris Skull, and the British Skull are much smaller than the Mitchell-Hedges skull, and not nearly as perfectly carved or as clear.

During a lecture tour in Mexico many years ago, Nocerino (the same expert mentioned earlier) was invited to a location in Guerro Provence, to assist in locating the buried ruins of an ancient city. It was during this visit that Nocerino provided the information as to the location of what he thought was an ancient temple. (Due to the current political situation in Mexico, the safety of those currently involved with this excavation would be compromised should I reveal the exact location of the excavation, or the name of the city.) Excavation of that location later revealed several carved crystal artifacts. Among these artifacts were two crystal skulls, one of which is currently owned by Nocerino, which is 13 pounds 3 ounces and is carved of clear quartz crystal. Nocerino calls the skull Sha-Na-Ra, in memory of a Shaman Healer he once knew. The second is currently owned by DaEl Walker, a well- known crystal researcher and author of several crystal healing books. It is smaller than Sha-Na-Ra, about 9 pounds, also quartz crystal. DaEl calls it The Rainbow Skull, due to the rainbow of colors that dance through the skull when in the natural light. 

There were many other artifacts found at this location. Several small carved crystal skulls, half skulls which were hollow and a very rare and powerful item we call The Jaguar Man. It is five inches high, two inches in diameter and is carved of quartz crystal. It depicts the head of a Jaguar, with the head of a man in its mouth. The facial features of the man do not appear Mayan. This piece is currently owned by Charles C. Pelton (Pelton Foundation of Paranormal Research), and is being exposed to extensive research.

Aside from the theory of these being hoaxes or exaggerations, the very first questions that comes up are, “Where did these skulls come from?” and “Why do they exist?” There are countless hypotheses that they are the legacy of some higher intelligence. Many believe they were created by extraterrestrials or beings in Atlantis. Yet another theory maintains that these skulls together contain a history of mankind.  Also, as mentioned earlier, local legends say that these were given by the Goddess of Death. 

The most obvious theory links these to Mayans, although the Aztecs are a more formidable candidate for this, since a lot of their artwork as well as religious symbols featured skulls.  In addition, they were the finest known crystal sculpters.  Perhaps the skulls found in Mayan ruins were Out Of Place ARTifacts (OOPARTS).

What’s more, some believe that “The ancient Crystal Skulls are the computers of the ancients, they contain important information that help humanity to pass through it current series of challenges to take us into a Golden Age.”, and “They were a powerful tool for healing the body, mind, and spirit, by ancient civilizations such as the Mayans or the Atlanteans”

Or perhaps these skulls are somehow linked to the “Year Zero” or December 21, 2012, the date at which the Mayan Calendar ends.

According to some psychics who performed experiments on some skulls,

It is unfortunate that very few of these skulls exist and are therefore not easily accessible for researchers to work upon.  We can only hope that the truth behind these skulls comes to light soon.