National Geographic on the real fake crystal skulls
This crystal skull from the British Museum was once believed to have been ancient Aztec handiwork. Then, electron microscopes revealed that it's a fake from the mid- to late-1800s. In fact, according to National Geographic, the museum's "examinations and the fact that no such skull has ever been uncovered at an official archaeological excavation led the British Museum to extrapolate that all of the famed crystal skulls (around the world) are likely fakes." Of course, none of this should have any impact on whether you think the Indiana Jones movie sucked or not. From National Geographic:
Many believe (crystal) skulls were carved thousands or even tens of thousands of years ago by an ancient Mesoamerican civilization. Others think they may be relics from the legendary island of Atlantis or proof that extraterrestrials visited the Aztec sometime before the Spanish conquest...Link
Skulls were prominent in ancient Mesoamerican artwork, particularly among the Aztec, so the connection between these artifacts and these civilizations is apt.
"[I]t was a symbol of regeneration," says Michael Smith, a professor of anthropology at Arizona State University. "There were several Aztec gods that were represented by skulls, so they were probably invoking these gods. I don't think they were supposed to have specific powers or anything like that."
the latest
latest episodes
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the fake Crystal Skull
...
Regardless of their origins some of them are beautiful and astonishing examples of craft.
@1 No, no, no.... Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the REAL FAKE Crystal Skull. :-)
I used to be a newspaper photographer, and I'd sometimes freelance for AP. One time I shot an assignment for them in West Palm Beach, Florida, of some treasure retrieved from a Spanish shipwreck. Among the items were several pre-Columbian gold items, the "Isabella Emerald," and a few small crystal skulls. Since the emerald was real, it's probably safe to say that the skulls were authentic. They were about the size of a Key lime. I still have the prospectus handed out to investors for the survey and retrieval.
@4 dbarak -- I don't follow. How does the authenticity of the emerald demonstrate whether or not the skulls were thousands of years old or merely a couple of hundred? As I recall from the NPR interview I heard (which is more or less in line with the NatGeo article) it's thought the skulls were carved post Spanish Conquest, because, well, the Spaniards liked to buy such things. I think the interviewee described them as proto airport tchotchkes. If true, the skulls you photographed might have been carved a few weeks before the ill-fated ship sailed.
Dbarak, I'd encourage you to send an email to one of the people listed at the bottom of this British Museum page on crystal skulls to see if they could give you some contact info for an expert who might be interested in trying to date the skulls found in that shipwreck.
What does "fake" mean? They aren't really made from crystal?
If it's whether the objects were made by ancient meso-americans or modern man, does it diminish their value or beauty that much? The Mitchell-Hedges skull, with its detachable jaw is pretty impressive.
I believe that Jambi from Peewee's Playhouse traces his ancestry to that very skull. All of his family attended Meka Leka High, btw.
I kinda like Damien Hirsts take on this...wait, he's the Artist with the Diamond-Encrusted Skull, right?(Not his.) The one he sold for Gazillions?
I remember as a kid reading about these crystal skulls in a UFO book. The author marveled at the mystery of how they knew what a skull looked like before X-rays were invented.
JGS, good point. I should have been clearer when I posted. I'm not saying the skulls are thousands of years old. I saw a TV show the other night, and the impression I got was that they were saying all the skulls were fakes, and I guess I was rebutting that. That's what I get for PWD - Posting While Distracted. : )
Jesse M - I've long since lost contact with the person behind the treasure salvage, although I did see the prospectus in my storage unit just this past Sunday. I believe that document lists the date of the sinking of the ship. I wish I had it here to refer to.
From the DOCUs I have seen and reading I have done, the interesting thing about these skulls is not that they are "pre" anything but that the creation of the skulls cannot be explained or emulated even with today's technology. Thus, leading people to speculate that the skulls are alien or from a lost, advanced civilization in origin.
Actually, the skulls are considered modern because the researchers discovered that they bear marks of rotary grinding tools, which are a fairly recent invention. In other words, a nineteenth century Dremel.
didn't I read something about holes drilled in stone by abrasive dust and rotating mandrels? "The Ancient Engineers" or somesuch... circa 5000BC? All you need for a lathe is a whippy sapling. A firedrill (bow drill) works well too.
@9VIADD
I came here to say that! OMFG, even as a stupid, gullible kid I remember being so taken aback by the sheer stupidity of that statement that it almost hurt. :-D
The researchers used an electron microscope to show that the skulls were probably shaped using a spinning disc-shaped tool made from copper or another suitable metal. The craftsman added an abrasive to the wheel, allowing the crystal to be worked more easily.
This "rotary wheel" technology was almost certainly not used by pre-Columbian peoples. Instead, analysis of genuine Aztec and Mixtec artifacts show they were crafted using tools made from stone and wood.
The British Museum skull was worked with a harsh abrasive such as corundum or diamond. But X-ray diffraction analysis showed a different material, called carborundum, was used on the artefact in the Smithsonian.
Carborundum is a synthetic abrasive which only came into use in the 20th Century: "The suggestion is that it was made in the 1950s or later," said Professor Freestone.
BBC article
I remember being so taken aback by the sheer stupidity of that statement that it almost hurt.
There seems to be a school of thought that says that anything that hasn't been proven in three double blind studies can't possible exist. Its proponents show up here quite frequently. Obviously microwaves didn't exist until somebody invented an oven to make them. The same must be true for x-rays.
Archeology Magazine also had an article about the crystal skulls.
http://www.archaeology.org/0805/etc/indy.html
#16 -
I thought that the stupidity of the statement had more to do with the fact that you don`t need x-rays to have seen what a skull looks like, rather than the "invented" wording.
Of course it's real, it's made by aliens! *groan* :)
Regardless of the origin, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was boringly mediocre. Badly written escape scenes, overacting by Harrison Ford AND Karen Allen, as well as their over-botoxed faces are an insult to the rest of the series.
? How is it possible to over-act in an Indiana Jones film?
I'm a bit of a meso-american artifact nut - well more like an obsessive. For some reason I always was skeptical of the crystal skulls - it just wasn't a material that was commonly worked that way in pre-Columbian times. The only other item I've commonly seen in crystal was labret plugs and usually the material in these was not the super clear stuff seen in these skulls and the finish is much rougher. Compare this with jade which was worked into all sorts of shapes - not just skulls. So why *only* skulls in clear crystal?
And the crystal skulls are stylistically very different from the more common precolumbian jade skulls I've seen.
I liked the comment on the very ooga-booga SciFi program (no, of course I didn't watch it, it was in the trailer) where they said "they couldn't possibly have made it...it would have taken them 100 years!" Never mind that for example the Cologne Cathedral was begun in 1248 and wasn't finished until 1880!
One of the more famous of these skulls was owned for years by the little old lady in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada.
She would trot this thing out on occassion. I remember seeing her and it at this tiny little 'rock and fossil show' set up on a bunch of plywood tables in a small shopping mall.
There was a 'local celebs' thing about her...
http://news.therecord.com/article/353481
Sleze: no it wasn't (at least 97% of the time)
@4 wrote:
"I used to be a newspaper photographer, and I'd sometimes freelance for AP. One time I shot an assignment for them in West Palm Beach, Florida, of some treasure retrieved from a Spanish shipwreck. Among the items were several pre-Columbian gold items, the "Isabella Emerald," and a few small crystal skulls. Since the emerald was real, it's probably safe to say that the skulls were authentic. They were about the size of a Key lime. I still have the prospectus handed out to investors for the survey and retrieval."
The ship you are referring to -- that carried the Isabella Emerald -- was sunk in 1757. It was recovered in 1992 or 1993 by Archaeological Discovery Ventures (whose website seems to have gone 404). A summary here.
And yes, there were a number of crystal skulls found in the shipwreck which ADV characterized as "Mayan." That is interesting because the crystal skulls in the British Museum are believed to be 19th century European creations, whereas here we have fairly good evidence (assuming it wasn't planted by the folks who discovered the wreck) of a crystal skull of a) 18th century origin and b) likely created in the New World.