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Indiana's crystal skulls: Real or ruse?

May 15, 2008, 15:48 GMT

Los Angeles - The plot of the newest Indiana Jones movie features the intrepid archaeologist on the trail of an ancient Mayan crystal skull that purportedly contains secrets brought to Earth from beyond the stars.

The movie has brought new focus and scrutiny to a legend that the ancient Maya had 13 such skulls which contained amazing powers when aligned together. New age devotees have attributed magical powers to the mysterious crystals. Hundreds of crystal skulls are believed to be in existence, but 12 of the most perfect specimens are displayed in large institutions like the British Museum. However, experts dismiss them as fakes made by antiquities traders in the 19th century, rather than the pre-Columbian works of mystical wonder they are purported to be. Eleven years ago, the British Museum released the finding of a study that found that numerous etchings on the skull had been made with 19th century rotational jewellery tools. Last week the French Quai Branly museum announced the most detailed findings yet. The 'French skull' was probably made in a small village in southern Germany in the second half of the 19th century. The quartz from which it was made is from the European Alps, not from Central America. As far as the ancient legend goes, it was probably the product of the imagination of the antique merchant, Eugene Boban, the former archaeologist to Mexican emperor Maximillian. Boban sold the Quai Branly skull to a wealthy French collector in 1875. Boban claimed the skulls were found in Mexico in the late 19th century by mercenaries and represent Mictlantecuhtli, the Aztec god of the dead. The British Museum catalogues the skull's provenance as 'probably European, 19th century AD' and describes it as 'not an authentic pre- Columbian artefact.' The most famous crystal skull is the Mitchell-Hedges 'skull of doom.' Evidence has since shown that the Mitchell-Hedges family bought the skull at a Sotheby's sale in 1943 for 400 pounds. But until then, legend attributed its discovery to 17-year old Anna Mitchell-Hedges in the 1920s while accompanying her explorer father to the ancient Mayan city of Lubaantun in Belize where he was searching for the ruins of Atlantis. The Mitchell-Hedges family claimed the skull was 3,600 years old and was used by the High Priest of the Maya when performing esoteric rites, according to the book The Mysteries of the Crystal Skulls Revealed, by Josh Shapiro. 'It is said that when he willed death with the help of the skull, death invariably followed,' Anna Mitchell-Hedges was quoted as saying. 'It has been described as the embodiment of all evil.' That evil was on display recently when a large crystal skull was stolen from a New Age store in Claremont, about 30 miles east of downtown Los Angeles, where it had been on display. 'We have zero shoplifting in here, and I have no idea why anyone would take something as lovely as that,' Persis Newland, owner of Kindred Spirits in Claremont, was quoted as saying by the Los Angeles Times. Newland said the movie was the likely motivation. 'Someone must have thought about it in that term, connected with the movie or something,' Newland said. 'I have no idea why someone would take that and not the other things that are equally valuable on the altar.'

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