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Crystal skull - Mitchell-Hedges skull

Crystal skull - Mitchell-Hedges skull: Encyclopedia II - Crystal skull - Mitchell-Hedges skull

Perhaps the best-known crystal skull, the Mitchell-Hedges skull, is currently in the possession of Anna Mitchell-Hedges. Her father F.A. Mitchell-Hedges, was an adventurer who dabbled in amateur archaeology, as well as the ancient civilizations of Latin America and the study of Atlantis (a rumored sunken civilization thought mythical by most archaeologists). F.A. Mitchell-Hedges claimed to have found the skull in a cave on one of his expeditions to Lubaantun, but his detractors insist that he bought it at an auction at Sotheby's. The salesmen ...

Crystal skull: Encyclopedia II - Crystal skull - Mitchell-Hedges skull

Crystal skull - Mitchell-Hedges skull

Perhaps the best-known crystal skull, the Mitchell-Hedges skull, is currently in the possession of Anna Mitchell-Hedges. Her father F.A. Mitchell-Hedges, was an adventurer who dabbled in amateur archaeology, as well as the ancient civilizations of Latin America and the study of Atlantis (a rumored sunken civilization thought mythical by most archaeologists).

F.A. Mitchell-Hedges claimed to have found the skull in a cave on one of his expeditions to Lubaantun, but his detractors insist that he bought it at an auction at Sotheby's. The salesmen at Sotheby's apparently got it from owners in Germany.

Mitchell-Hedges, and a few others, claim that the skull is too intricate and flawless a carving to have been made hurriedly in recent years, and insist that the skull must have been carved over decades in the distant past in Atlantis. One inspector of a skull reportedly estimated that this work of crystal would require 200 years for humans to make. Mitchell-Hedges himself declared that the skull took 150 years to make and was 3,600 years old, although he offered no sources or reasons for these dates.

Critics of Mitchell-Hedges's speculations reply that modern technology has provided many ways for skillful artisans to produce sculptures with relative ease: furthermore, as virtually all historians and scientists agree that there is no evidence of a lost Atlantean civilization, these critics denounce the suggestion that the skull was carved in Atlantis as wishful thinking.

Recent research on a possibly Aztec crystal skull held by the British Museum, has shown that the indented lines marking the teeth (for this skull has no seperate jawbone, unlike the Mitchell-Hedges skull) were carved using jeweler's equipment developed in the 19th century, making a supposed pre-Columbian origin even more dubious.