Surviving The Myths

These skulls, found near the ancient ruins of Mayan and Aztec civilizations (with some evidence linking the skulls with past civilization in Peru) are a mystery as profound as the Pyramids of Egypt, the Nazca Lines of Peru, or Stonehenge. An old Native American legend describes the existence of thirteen life-size human skulls made of rock crystal that were said to speak or sing. Some of the skulls are believed to be between 5,000 and 36,000 years old. |According to the legend, these crystal skulls contain answers to some of the great mysteries of life and the universe. The legend also says that one, day at a time of great need, at a time of great crisis for humanity, all of these crystal skulls will be rediscovered and brought back together again to reveal their knowledge and information vital to the very survival of the human race.

 

Many indigenous people speak of their remarkable magical and healing properties, but nobody really knows where they came from or what they were used for. Were they left behind after the destruction of a previous world, such as Atlantis? }{Are they simply ingenious modern fakes or can they really enable us to see deeply into the past and predict the future?

Much research is currently being done on the skulls. However, their origin is still a baffling mystery. They seem to defy logic. Everything that is known about lapidary work indicates that the skulls should have been shattered fractured or fallen apart when carved.

________________________________________________________________________

The Anna Mitchell-Hedges Skull
was discovered in British Honduras in 1927

 

The discovery of this baffling artifact is a controversial matter. When we first heard this legend we were on holiday in Central America, and we had no idea that we were about to spend the next three years of our lives searching for the truth about these most strange, enigmatic and beautiful objects. It was brought into prominence by British explorer F. We were first told the legend while visiting the ancient Mayan ruins of Tikal in Guatemala. A. Mitchell-Hedges, who claimed that his daughter unearthed it in 1924? Mitchell-Hedges led an expedition in the ancient Mayan ruins of Lubaantun, in Belize (then British Honduras), searching for evidence of Atlantis. At the time, we thought the whole thing was merely a colorful story and that there was nothing more to it than that. }{Indeed, we thought little more about it until a chance encounter, whilst visiting the neighboring country of Belize, where we found out that a real crystal skull had actually been discovered.

 

The story goes that his daughter, Anna, was rummaging inside a structure believed to have once been a temple, when she found the beautifully carved cranium of the crystal skull. This crystal skull was discovered in ancient Mayan ruins which lie deep in the rainforest, in the 1920’s. It was lacking its jawbone, but the matching mandible was found three months later, some 25 feet away from the first discovery. The British adventurer/explorer, Frederick Mitchell-Hedges and his party were looking for evidence of the lost civilization of Atlantis. Mitchell-Hedges claimed that he refused to take the skull away, and offered it to the local priests, but the Mayans gave the skull back to him as a gift upon his departure. One day, trekking through the jungle they came across some mounds of stone overgrown with moss and foliage and suffocated by roots and vines. They stumbled upon the lost city of Lubaantun, which in Mayan means the city of the fallen stones.

 

It now appears that this tale of the skull’s discovery was entirely fabricated. During the excavation of the site, Mitchell-Hedges’ adopted daughter Anna says she discovered the crystal skull buried beneath an altar in one of the ruined temple-pyramids. Mitchell-Hedges apparently purchased the skull at an auction at Sotheby’s in London, in 1943. This has been verified by documents at the British Museum, which had bid against Mitchell-Hedges for the crystal artifact. The Mayan helpers on the dig are said to have gone wild with joy on the emergence of the skull. They placed it on an altar and performed ceremonies and dances around it; ‘It was as if an ancient and powerful force had returned to the lives of those present’. The skull in question was a magnificent and perfect specimen made from almost totally transparent quartz crystal. It was the size of a real human skull and was highly anatomically accurate, coming complete with a separate lower jaw-bone.

 

This revelation is consistent with the known history of Mitchell-Hedge’s involvement with the skull. |As film-makers we were fascinated, a strange and mysterious artifact discovered in the ruins of an ancient Mayan temple sounded as if it would make an interesting documentary so we set about finding out more. There are no photographs of the skull among those that were taken during his Lubaatun expedition, and there is no documentation of Mitchell-Hedges displaying or even acknowledging the skull prior to 1943.

 

The skull remains in the possession of the octogenarian Anna Mitchell-Hedges. We were surprised to discover that the young woman who found the crystal skull back in the 1920’s, Anna Mitchell-Hedges, was still alive and well and still in possession of the crystal skull. She resides in Canada and displays the skull on frequent tours. She was almost 90 years old and had kept the skull with her throughout her long life. 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. Anna was convinced that the crystal skull had magical healing and communicative powers and that it protected her and kept her in good health all her life. Others who had spent time with the skull also had a number of strange, paranormal experiences to report – that in its presence they had heard the soft sound of human voices chanting, or had seen images of the past or the future deep within its crystalline structure.

 

The Mitchell-Hedges skull is made of clear quartz crystal, and both cranium and mandible are believed to have come from the same solid block. Since Anna Mitchell-Hedges first discovered her crystal skull, a number of other crystal skulls have also come to light – just as prophesied in the ancient legend. It weighs 11.7 pounds and is about five inches high, five inches wide, and seven inches long. Our investigation led us to three large crystal skulls kept in some of the world’s leading museums and a further three belonging to private individuals. Except for slight anomalies in the temples and cheekbones, it is a virtually anatomically correct replica of a human skull. Because of its small size and other characteristics, it is thought more closely to resemble a female skull — and this has led some to refer to the Mitchell-Hedges skull as a “she.”

 

The Mitchell-Hedges family loaned the skull to Hewlett-Packard Laboratories for extensive study in 1970. Art restorer Frank Dorland oversaw the testing at the Santa Clara, California, computer equipment manufacturer, a leading facility for crystal research. All of the crystal skulls are of mysterious origin and all are surrounded by tales of strange telepathic or healing powers. The HP examinations yielded some startling results. For the most part, the owners believe their skulls to be Central American in origin. They are thought to have originated with one or other ancient civilization of Central America, either the Aztecs, the Maya or a mysterious pre-Mayan civilization which some believe to have been the Atlanteans of legend.