Mystery of the crystal skulls

The latest Indiana Jones movie is based on a crystal skull found in Maya ruins. Here's the history and science behind the fiction.

From a photo caption on MSNBC, 5/12/08:People watch as Mayan Indian priests participate in a ceremony while one holds up a crystal skull at the Mayan ruins of Palenque, Mexico March 10, 2008. There is a legend that the ancient Maya possessed 13 crystal skulls which, when united, hold the power of saving the Earth, a tale so strange and fantastic that it inspired the latest Indiana Jones movie.The History Behind the Mystery

Eighty Years of Exploration and Study Reveal the Secrets of Crystal Skulls … MaybeIn 1924, the famed British banker-turned-adventurer F.A. Mitchell-Hedges led an expedition deep into the Central American jungles of British Honduras (now Belize). His mission: to find evidence of the lost continent of Atlantis. But it was Mitchell-Hedges’ adopted daughter, Anna, who made a find for which this quest was to become famous. On Anna’s 17th birthday, as Mitchell-Hedges and his crew were excavating the ancient ruins of a Mayan temple at Lubaantun, Anna spied an object glinting in the soil under a collapsed altar: a beautiful sculpted human skull carved with uncanny craftsmanship out of a single block of translucent quartz crystal.The facts behind the mystery:In 1970, the Mitchell-Hedges family reportedly loaned the skull for testing to Hewlett-Packard Laboratories—a leading facility for crystal research in Santa Clara, California. The testing produced some startling findings, according to Frank Dorland, an art restorer who claims to have overseen the examinations. He reported that HP 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 carving “against the grain” causes the crystal to shatter—even with the use of lasers and other high-tech cutting methods.

Furthermore, Dorland claimed, HP could find none of the microscopic scratches on the crystal typically caused by carving with metal instruments. This led Dorland to hypothesize that the skull was roughly hewn with diamonds, with the detail work being done with a gentle solution of silicon sand and water—a near-impossible task he estimated would have required up to 300 years in man hours to complete. Dorland also claimed the skull originated in Atlantis and had been carried around by the Knights Templar during the Crusades.

But there is no documented evidence to support the claims of the skull’s exotic origins and some authorities have claimed that Mitchell-Hedges purchased the skull at an auction at Sotheby’s in London in 1943—an allegation supported by documents at the British Museum, which reportedly had bid against him for the artifact. That would also explain why Mitchell-Hedges apparently never spoke of the skull before 1943—even though he claimed Anna had found it nearly 20 years earlier. However, Mitchell-Hedges claimed he was actually buying back the skull after leaving it in the care of a friend, who put it up for sale at Sotheby’s.

There is also some doubt as to whether the tests at Hewlett-Packard were ever carried out, since no evidence of such testing has been provided by the company. Furthermore, later tests determined that the skull was carved using 19th century jeweler’s tools, making its supposed pre-Columbian origin even more dubious.A segment from Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World explores the mystery (uncritically):

Crystal Skulls Unsolved Mystery