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The Story behind the
Mitchell-Hedges Crystal
As the story goes, the skull was first discovered by the
expedition headed by famous English archaeologist F. Albert Mitchell-Hedges
in Central America in 1927. Before that, the archaeologist 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 archaeological 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 archaeologist 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
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
artefact, 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't 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't 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 fibre
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. |
