Mystery of the crystal skulls!

[Iamme]

I was watching the Travel Channel last night. Did you see this? About these crystal skulls? That there are supposed to be 13 of these? That the whereabouts of 5 of them are known. They are made of material only 2nd in hardness to diamond. And nobody knows for sure who made these or where they came from. I have never heard of these things before. Just when I thought we had discussed all the world's mysteries..now we have THIS.

I am going Googling now to see what else I can find on this.

[Iamme]

Go here to read more: http://www.world-mysteries.com/sar_6_1.htm

[geni]

Originally posted by Iamme
I was watching the Travel Channel last night. Did you see this? About these crystal skulls? That there are supposed to be 13 of these? That the whereabouts of 5 of them are known.

you can buy yours here:
http://www.mineralminers.com/html/crystal_skulls.stm


They are made of material only 2nd in hardness to diamond.


not true


And nobody knows for sure who made these or where they came from.

The one in the british museam does not predate the 19th century

[Dr Adequate]

Originally posted by Iamme
I was watching the Travel Channel last night. Did you see this? About these crystal skulls? Here's (http://skepdic.com/crystalskull.html) what the skeptic's dictionary has to say about them.They are made of material only 2nd in hardness to diamond. No they aren't. The second hardest material in nature is crystals of aluminium oxide -- corundum --- or, to you, rubies and saphires, which are 9 on Moh's hardness scale (diamond is 10). All the known "crystal skulls" are made of silicon dioxide --- quartz, basically --- which has a hardness of 7.

[Bikewer]

The "mysterious crystal skulls" have been knocking around for many years. There have been a number of skeptical articles and examinations of these items, all of which have been found to be of contemporary manufacture.

In various South American countries, there are cottage industries producing all sorts of such fakes, including the "ancient" stones showing UFOs and dinosaurs and men all together.
The tourists love 'em.

[Soapy Sam]

I understand several skulls have been sourced in Germany. The example in the British Museum is also believed to be German. These are 19th - 20th century artifacts.

There seems to be a desperate desire to believe that you cannot work hard materials without hardened steel tools or synthetic abrasives.
Hooey.
You can grind and polish quartz using no more than a slurry of clay, sand and water, (even better if you have garnet sand.) It just takes a lot of time and effort. There's a lovely quartz vase in a museum in Athens- must have taken months, possibly years of someone's life. A thing of beauty to be admired for it's craftsmanship, not something to devalue with daft nonsense.

[kedo1981]

Back in HS I took a magnet course at the local natural history Museum, part of which, was to dig at a pre Columbian dig site in Dayton.

One of the instructors show us how you could drill a hole in a 2 inch limestone block in about an hour, you use a bow drill and sand and you char the end of the wooden "drill bit" and and press it into the sand

[Beth]

I'm curious, from http://www.parascope.com/articles/0197/skull_01.htm

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. The HP examinations yielded some startling results.

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.

Under these circumstances, experts believe that successfully crafting a shape as complex as the Mitchell-Hedges skull is impossible; as one HP researcher is said to have remarked, "The damned thing simply shouldn't be."

Obvious, it's not impossible. The thing exists. But I don't know crystals or anything about shaping them to judge how credible this information is. Anyway I'm curious. Does anyone know of a verification or refutation of this?

Thanks

Beth

[epepke]

Originally posted by Beth
Obvious, it's not impossible. The thing exists. But I don't know crystals or anything about shaping them to judge how credible this information is. Anyway I'm curious. Does anyone know of a verification or refutation of this?

I've seen the "against the grain" claim before. I don't see how it can possibly mean anything with respect to a round object. Besides, there are plenty of crystal balls, and they're symmetrical. Obviously, there's a crystalline structure there, so which direction is against the grain?

[Dr Adequate]

I was just thinking of crystal balls myself. They make a nonsense of this "against the grain" thing, you don't need diamond tools to make them, it doesn't take three hundred years to get them up to a high polish, and they're made of exactly the same material.

But what are Hewlett Packard doing looking at it in the first place? They make computers, don't they? So what do they know about lapidiary sculpture?

[Zep]

FYI, most natural crystals have axes of orientation, usually three, set at angles to each other. The orientation of these axes determines the face structure of the crystal and their relationship to each other, and gives each substance its characteristic crystalline "shape". They also determine how each crystal will likely fracture, or "cleave", along specific planes where the crystal structure is weaker than other directions. It is how we get grains of salt - large chunks of salt have been fractured into smaller ones (salt fractures into small right-angle blocks).

Most crystal material itself is usually homogenous throughout, giving them their characteristic colour, clarity, refractive index, etc. It is only if a bunch of long (or, indeed, flat) crystals lie alongside each other as a bundle (think of phone wires in a cable) that any sort of "grain" can be considered. Asbestos is a good example of a long thin crystal bundle.

Otherwise the article is probably referring poorly to the single crystal fracture properties, which do not preclude them being shaped by abrasion into any desired form at all. Think of ruby and sapphire cabechons - rounded jewelstones. But hit them with a hammer or sharp point, though, and you will find the cleavage planes easily enough.

[Zep]

Do HP have an IC chip fabrication plant in California? If so, it's likely they will have people well up in the science of crystal formation there. So the idea would seem reasonable and logical. But their response seems mis-stated...

http://mems.colorado.edu/c1.res.ppt/ppt/g.tutorial/img015.gif
http://mems.colorado.edu/c1.res.ppt/ppt/g.tutorial/img015.gif

[Soapy Sam]

Lets not confuse silicon with quartz.

Quartz (Silicon Dioxide, SiO2) has no natural cleavage planes.
Yes, it grows lovely pseudohexagonal crystals, but that's not how it breaks.

It breaks in a conchoidal pattern, giving surfaces which are alternately jagged and smooth. Useless to a lapidarist.

This is the main reason why quartz, despite it's great hardness , abundance and beauty, is not a valued gemstone. It's a bugger to cut and , because it's cheap it just is not worth the trouble.

Polishing is indeed quite different from cutting.

I have emailed HP on two occasions for confirmation of the tests they are supposed to have done on this skull. I never had a reply.
But if they were looking for polishing scratches indicative of metal tools, they were wasting their time. Nobody polishes quartz using metal tools. You use abrasive slurries of clay and water containing ultrafine metal oxide or silicate powder. If you're a real perfectionist, you keep going with finer and finer grades of softer minerals , right down to talc.

The same techniques are used on glass for telescope mirrors. I expect HP may have designed test equipment for measuring those.

[Zep]

Indeed true - I should have included that diagram with the preceding post, actually, to prevent the confusion. My bad.

[Beth]

Thanks Zep and Soapy Sam for the lesson in crystal structure. Still a bit mysterious isn't it though? Too bad HP never responded to your queries.

Beth

[Correa Neto]

Sorry, but with all due respect, what´s "a bit mysterious" in this case?

The skulls?
Plenty of evidence has surfaced that most of them were made in Europe using quartz crystals imported from Brazil (a NGC documentary showed this quite well) and there are very suspicious circunstances involving their alleged discovery at ancient temples in Central America.

The methodology for carving them?
Again, its nothing out of this world. Requires patience and skill, but there´s no need for exotic materials/techniques to be invoked.

Crystal structure?
What´s mysterious on it? One may think of it as wonderfull, but mysterious? Minerals, polymers, all of these have organized structures.

All the nonsense around the crystals skulls?
Simple. It all boils down to people wanting to make money and people desperately looking for something "out-of-the-ordinary" to belive in. Just like LAL desperately wanting to belive that PGF film shows a real bigfoot.

[Beth]

Originally posted by Correa Neto
Sorry, but with all due respect, what´s "a bit mysterious" in this case?

The skulls?
Plenty of evidence has surfaced that most of them were made in Europe using quartz crystals imported from Brazil (a NGC documentary showed this quite well) and there are very suspicious circunstances involving their alleged discovery at ancient temples in Central America.

Some (at least according to some of the linked articles) are ancient, that is not produced in the past 150 years. Who made them and why? Even the ones determined to be of recent origin, who made them and why is unknown.

The methodology for carving them?
Again, its nothing out of this world. Requires patience and skill, but there´s no need for exotic materials/techniques to be invoked.

The HP analysis is neither confirmed or repudated. If true, that implies some mystery about how that particular skull was constructed. If not, well it's just another hoax.

Crystal structure?
What´s mysterious on it? One may think of it as wonderfull, but mysterious? Minerals, polymers, all of these have organized structures.

Agreed. Crystal structure is well documented and not mysterious, though I don't know that much about it personally.

All the nonsense around the crystals skulls?
Simple. It all boils down to people wanting to make money and people desperately looking for something "out-of-the-ordinary" to belive in. Just like LAL desperately wanting to belive that PGF film shows a real bigfoot.

Personally, I find ancient artifacts of all types fascinating. Since some of the skulls are considered ancient with their origin and purpose unknown, that makes them mysterious in my book.

Beth

[richardm]

Originally posted by Beth
Some (at least according to some of the linked articles) are ancient, that is not produced in the past 150 years. Who made them and why? Even the ones determined to be of recent origin, who made them and why is unknown.


Some of the stone Aztec skulls do appear to be ancient, but they're quite stylised and not as dramatic as the modern fakes.

As for the modern ones, we don't know who made them (except that they appear to have been German), but the "Why?" is pretty straightforward to answer: Money. The people who claimed to have found the first skull actually bought it at an auction in 1943 for £400 - a quite substantial sum in those days.

Unfortunately, the reality is rather humdrum. No real mystery at all. It is, of course, having something that appears amazing and ancient that makes these things so attractive and keeps them in the public eye, but the evidence is that they not ancient, and not all that amazing. I'd be happy to regard them as interesting objects, but the wall of woo that gets erected around them time and again really puts my back up. Sorry! (If that's not evident from this post, you should have seen the first draft :D )

[sophia8]

Originally posted by richardm
S The people who claimed to have found the first skull actually bought it at an auction in 1943 for £400 - a quite substantial sum in those days.
That was Mitchell-Hedges himself, owner of the Grandaddy of all crystal skulls, and the main creator of the crystal skulls mythology. He called it "The Skull of Doom", said that it had been made 3000 years before by Mayan priests and that it carried a deathly curse (he didn't say how he hadmanaged to escape this curse.)
He claimed to have found the skull during a South American dig in the 1930s; his daughter Anna says she was with him on the expedition and uncovered it herself. There's no evidence that she was ever in South America.
The first record of the M-H Skull is in 1936, when it was owned by one Sydney Burney - it was even called the Burney Skull. When evidence emerged that Mitchell-Hedges had actually bought it in 1943, when Burney put it up at a Sothebys auction, he came up with some cock-and-bull story about how he had given the skull to Burney as surety for a loan and had merely bought it back.
Anna is still alive, and is still insisting that the skull is not a fake - she comes across as a thoroughly sad case. She has a website somewhere - last time I looked, it had a page about another antiquity with amazing powers that was in her possession - a Russian icon, this time.

ETA: The Mitchell-Hedges Skull is a fascinating artefact in its own right. It has a hinged lower jaw that can be made to swing open and shut just by tilting the object a little; I havealso read that there are "light channels" bored from behind the eyeholes to the bottom of the skull, so if a light is shone up from below, the eyeholes glow. If that's true, then the skull was almost certainly made as a stage prop of some kind.

[epepke]

Originally posted by Dr Adequate
But what are Hewlett Packard doing looking at it in the first place? They make computers, don't they? So what do they know about lapidiary sculpture?

Aren't they Mormons? Or as I like to call them, the Church of Jesus Christ and the LD50? They make some good oscillosopes and all, but really.

[Correa Neto]

Originally posted by Beth
Some (at least according to some of the linked articles) are ancient, that is not produced in the past 150 years. Who made them and why? Even the ones determined to be of recent origin, who made them and why is unknown.

As richardm wrote, there is at least one is pre-colombian. IIRC its nowdays part of a catholic mass preaching apparatus that I don´t have the foggiest idea how it is called. Its not very detailed, and again, its not that much mysterious, since its made of milky quartz (relatively easy to obtain in Central America) and Aztecs (as well as Mayas) truly loved to draw and carve skulls, that were quite common "decoration pieces". Their religion had very strong links with death, and their gods were always bloodthirsty, demanding sacrifices (what gives us a cultural, possibly religious context). Just check pictures of some murals, pannels, carvings etc. and you´ll see a lot of skulls.

So, no big mistery here.

Originally posted by Beth
The HP analysis is neither confirmed or repudated. If true, that implies some mystery about how that particular skull was constructed. If not, well it's just another hoax.

The NG documentary showed how the skulls -even the most complex ones- could have been carved, even in the 19th century by experts in Austria, if I´m not mistaken. They made much more complex sculptures.

Originally posted by Beth
Personally, I find ancient artifacts of all types fascinating. Since some of the skulls are considered ancient with their origin and purpose unknown, that makes them mysterious in my book.


Well, depends on what you labell as ancient and mysterious. There´s no Atlantis, mystical properties, unknown carving techniches here. A few may have been made by the Aztecs, possibly for religious purposes. Most, by people who wanted to make some cash.

The mysterious aspects are framed within the above limitations.

[epepke]

Originally posted by Soapy Sam
Polishing is indeed quite different from cutting.

Well, as an amateur lapidoptero... lapidator... laposterous...--no, that has something to do with butterflies--stone guy, I have to say, you don't cut quartz; you polish it.

Cutting diamonds is important because you can cleave it along a natural face for the crystal, but the other facets are still polished.

[Correa Neto]

Originally posted by epepke
Well, as an amateur lapidoptero... lapidator... laposterous...--no, that has something to do with butterflies--stone guy, I have to say, you don't cut quartz; you polish it.

Cutting diamonds is important because you can cleave it along a natural face for the crystal, but the other facets are still polished.

[nitpicking mode]Actually you can cut quartz. We do it all the times when making thin sections for petrographic study, for example. You just have to use a circular saw with industrial diamonds -or vidia- at the edges.[/nitpicking mode]

OK, OK, I´ll shut up.

[Beth]

Originally posted by Correa Neto

The NG documentary showed how the skulls -even the most complex ones- could have been carved, even in the 19th century by experts in Austria, if I´m not mistaken. They made much more complex sculptures.

Well, depends on what you labell as ancient and mysterious. There´s no Atlantis, mystical properties, unknown carving techniches here. A few may have been made by the Aztecs, possibly for religious purposes. Most, by people who wanted to make some cash.

The mysterious aspects are framed within the above limitations.

Well, I've never bought into Atlantis stories nor mystical properties, but I'm still bamboozeled by the stuff regarding how it was carved - in whatever time period. What's the deal regarding the "no scratches" part of the HP report? Is that something that is truly amazing (if true) or is it just a bit of tomfoolery to mystify folks like me who don't know anything about carving quartz?

Beth

[Soapy Sam]

Beth- It would be nice to know exactly what was done by HP. Was this actually a formal test? Was it just that the owners knew someone at HP who looked at it one weekend?

The absence of scratches mean it has been carefully polished, that's all. Nothing marvellous. If anything it implies a recent origin , to my mind.

The business about being cut across the crystal axis is just nonsense so far as I can see. Quartz has no grain; axes of symmetry , yes; optical axes, yes. But neither have any bearing on it's mechanical properties. Quartz (in general; there are exceptions) has no natural cleavage. This is not one of the exceptions, because the quartz shows no evidence of being shocked, stressed, or having high percentages of mineral inclusions.
As epepke says- you don't cut it. You polish it. Yes it can be cut with diamond saws, (or piano wire if you're determined. Don't do this. Really, don't do this.), but that would not apply to the skulls.

One problem is with dating. It's possible to date the quartz, of course, which may be anywhere from one to several hundred million years old. That tells us nothing of interest.
What we want is to date the artifact . But we can't do that.

The only way to do that is by knowing the provenance. Where did it originate? With what other artifacts was it found? Here we need reliable data. Which is where the whole story gets very murky.

nb- Who asked about hp being mormons? I know several people with hp. If the company ever had or has any Mormon influence, I never heard of it. Nor did they. (They never heard of the skulls either). They're all just happy to be rid of Carly Fiorina.

[sophia8]

Earlier this year, I saved this article to my HD (don't know if the URL is still current):

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/story.jsp?story=598446

By Steve Connor, Science Editor
07 January 2005


Some say it has mystical powers derived from its ancient origins as an Aztec symbol of death. Others believe it is one of 13 crystal skulls that will foretell the destiny of humankind when brought together in the same place.

Whatever legends are attached to the crystal skull of the British Museum in London, one fact stands out. No other object in the museum's extensive collection has acquired such a cult following from New Age devotees.

Now, however, science can finally set the record straight and, in doing so, shatter one of the most enduring myths of an object steeped in historical fantasy. The crystal skull is a fake.

A detailed analysis of the skull's surface has revealed that it was cut and polished with the sort of rotating wheel common in the jewellery houses of 19th-century Europe but absent in pre-Columbian America.

Historians and scientists believe that the skull was cut from a piece of Brazilian rock crystal by a lapidary in Europe, possibly Germany, and then sold to collectors as a relic from the ancient Aztec civilisation of Mexico.

Doubts about the authenticity of the crystal skull - a near life-sized sculpture - first surfaced more than a decade ago. Tests have now confirmed that it is almost certainly not a genuine Aztec object, said Professor Ian Freestone of the University of Wales at Cardiff and a former head of scientific research at the British Museum in London.

"We are not at all sure that there is a rock source in Mexico that would produce a rock crystal of this size. There is strong circumstantial evidence that it comes from Brazil," Professor Freestone said. "When you look at known, genuine Aztec rock crystals, they have a much gentler polish. This has the harsh, polished look you get with modern equipment," he said.

These two findings alone do not prove a fraud, but when scientists began to investigate the surface of the skull under a powerful electron microscope the doubts about the skull's origins began to be confirmed.

The scientists took impressions of the skull with the same flexible resin used by dentists to take precise impressions of teeth. This revealed minute rotary scratch marks around the eye sockets, teeth and cranium and was clear evidence that the sculpture had been cut and polished with a wheeled instrument - and the Aztecs never used the wheel.

"The evidence coming together suggests that it was late. To me the case is overwhelmingly against it being of earlier, Aztec origin," Professor Freestone said.

Further work by an archivist, Jane Walsh of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, points the finger of suspicion at Eugene Boban, a 19th-century collector of pre-Columbian artefacts who appears to have been instrumental in selling at least two crystal skulls purporting to be ancient.

Not much is known about Boban except that he was a French citizen who spent more than two decades of his life in Mexico, Dr Walsh said.

Documents unearthed by Dr Walsh reveal that it was Boban who had acquired the skull that was eventually sold in 1897 by Tiffany's, the New York jeweller, to the British Museum. She also found that it was Boban who some years earlier had tried to sell the same skull to the Smithsonian. And it was Boban who sold a similar crystal skull to a collector who later donated it to the Musée de l'Homme in Paris, where it still is today.

For Boban to come into possession of two crystal skulls purporting to be of pre-Columbian origin may be a coincidence too far, especially in the light of the new scientific evidence suggesting a fake.

Colin McEwan of the British Museum said that the skull, which is going on display this Christmas in the museum's Wellcome Trust Gallery, has been the subject of some peculiar rituals over the years when it was in the Museum of Mankind. "We had people going into seances and talking in tongues," Dr McEwan said.

One native American legend tells of the existence of 13 such skulls which are supposed to contain information about the origins and destiny of humankind. At a time of great need all the skulls would be rediscovered so that they can be brought together in one place to reveal their secrets, so the legend goes.

Interestingly, there are now about a dozen large crystal skulls known to exist in the world, and all but three of them are in private hands.

Some of those who believe in these legends have accused the museum of trying to hide the skull from public view, or of "trapping" the cosmic energy contained in it, Dr McEwan said. "We've had extensive petitions claiming that damage has been done to the object because it has feelings, it's imprisoned, it's not allowed to fulfil its destiny, and so forth."

Joshua Shapiro, an author who believes the skull has mystical properties, said it was difficult for him to comment on the findings. "It sounds like they wish to discredit the significance of their crystal skull and the possibility that it could have been carved or fashioned by the Meso-American people in Mexico where it was purportedly discovered," he said. "These questions might not even be as important as what this crystal skull represents within this field of study... Even if its origins or who made it are unknown, it helped to give people in the world an awareness that such objects do exist, and that they are revered by the indigenous people in the world."

Professor Freestone accepts that the latest findings are unlikely to convince those who believe that the crystal skull is anything but a fake. "As soon as we say that one part of it has been polished in a certain way, someone else says it's because it's been touched up later on. It's hard to make a cast-iron case, to be honest," he admitted. "You've only got to look at the shroud of Turin to see that some people will be hard to convince even in the face of overwhelming evidence."

Nevertheless, even if it is a fake, the skull in London still commands a lot of interest from the public. As Professor Freestone says: "Whatever you think of it, it's a fantastic object. Even if it was made in Germany at the end of the 19th century."

[richardm]

Originally posted by sophia8
If that's true, then the skull was almost certainly made as a stage prop of some kind.

That's an interesting idea.

The end of the 19th Century was a popular time for spiritualists as well; perhaps it was always intended to be used as a woo prop. I can well imagine the effect it could have if employed correctly at a seance.

[Beth]

Originally posted by Soapy Sam
Beth- It would be nice to know exactly what was done by HP. Was this actually a formal test? Was it just that the owners knew someone at HP who looked at it one weekend?

The absence of scratches mean it has been carefully polished, that's all. Nothing marvellous. If anything it implies a recent origin , to my mind.


Yes, it would be nice to know what HP did, but it also helps to know what you just said. Me, I read articles or watch documentaries about it and don't have any idea how significant such details are.

Beth

[c4ts]

All this crystal skull business just trivializes what ancient cultures really knew about human anatomy. You don't need to find some mystic uber-detailed skull to show they understood where bones fit together in the human skull. Trepanned Aztec mummies, for example, have a lot more to teach us about their understanding of the human skull.

[sophia8]

Originally posted by richardm
The end of the 19th Century was a popular time for spiritualists as well; perhaps it was always intended to be used as a woo prop. I can well imagine the effect it could have if employed correctly at a seance.
It would certainly have proved profitable for any Victorian spritualist - far better than phosphorescent trumpets and regurgitrated muslin!
However, it would have been so amazing that somebody would have written about it. But there's no mention of it in any spritualist literature that I've come across. So, if it was used to wow the crowds, it would more likely have been at something like a "carney fair", along with the jugglers, the bearded ladies, the fire-eaters, the two-headed dogs et al.
Or, it might have been some crystal-worker's demonstration piece, or perhaps a privately-commissioned work - a 19thC executive toy!