Читать книгу The Mystery of the Crystal Skulls - Chris Morton - Страница 14

The debate over the true origins of the crystal skulls was to take a new turn when one of the world’s most powerful museums became embroiled in the controversy.

After our trip to Anna Mitchell-Hedges, we put in a call to the British Museum back in London. We wanted to see how their plans for testing their skull were progressing. But Elizabeth Carmichael now put us in touch with Dr Jane Walsh, Mesoamerican specialist at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, because she had become interested in crystal skulls when one had turned up at her office unexpectedly. We were intrigued. It seemed that Carole Wilson’s channelled prediction that some of the other crystal skulls would soon be rediscovered was coming true.

The Smithsonian’s crystal skull had come into their possession only very recently, and under very sad and mysterious circumstances. It had just arrived one day at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, having been sent through the post by an anonymous donor. Dr Walsh told us the story:

‘I got a call one afternoon from Richard Ahlborn, who is the curator over at American History. He said, “I’ve got something here the Department of Anthropology might be interested in.”

‘At first he didn’t say what it was but I got the impression from the tone of his voice that whatever it was he seemed very keen to get it off his hands. Then he explained that he had received in the mail a box, which had a crystal skull inside it.

‘The skull had arrived accompanied by an unsigned handwritten note which read simply: “Dear Sir, This Aztec crystal skull, purported to be part of the [Mexican President] Porfirio Díaz collection, was purchased in Mexico City in 1960… I am offering it to the Smithsonian without any consideration. Naturally, I wish to remain anonymous…”

‘Richard asked me if I would be interested in taking it. Unaware of the pitfalls that lay ahead, I said, “Yes, by all means, I’ll come right over and pick it up.”

‘But Richard said, ‘No, no, it’s too heavy. I’ll deliver it.”

‘So he called me and said he was downstairs. On the way down I stopped off at one of the technician’s offices and asked for a cart to pick it up. The technician wanted to know what I needed the cart for. So I explained that I needed it to pick up a crystal skull and I received the rather ominous warning, “Don’t look it in the eye – they’re cursed!”’

Undeterred, Dr Walsh wheeled the skull back to her office. And so it was that she found herself the caretaker of the world’s largest, and probably the ugliest, known crystal skull. We looked with interest at the photographs she sent us. Larger than life, the skull is about 10” (25.5 cm) high, 8.25” (22.8 cm) wide and weighs a phenomenal 31 lb (14 kg). Unlike the Mitchell-Hedges and British Museum skulls, it is not clear, but very cloudy. Also unlike the Mitchell-Hedges’ skull, but like the British Museum one, this skull has no separate jaw-bone.

One particularly curious feature of the skull is the fact that despite its massive weight it is actually completely hollow, so that you can look right through its eye sockets deep into its empty interior. It looks almost like a peculiar Halloween lantern, as if a candle might once have been placed within it which could be glimpsed only through the eye sockets. The skull has a smooth finish but is lacking in detail and its features are only crudely represented. But, whatever the quality of its craftsmanship, this skull is by no means a beautiful object. To me it looked rather ugly, whilst Ceri said she found it ‘positively disturbing’, ‘like looking at the mere shell of a human being’. The overall impression it gives is of a strange, almost non-human face. Ceri said it looked as though it were the image of some earlier period of human development and certainly from one particular angle it does look almost Neanderthal (see plate no. 9). But is this skull really cursed? Could we really not look it in the eye? And where had it come from?

Jane Walsh said she had had the skull in her office for quite a while now and had looked it in the eye many a time. ‘Nothing’s happened so far. I haven’t experienced any curses or anything,’ she said lightly.

But there was something about the arrival of the skull which some considered evidence of it being cursed. For why did its mysterious donor wish to remain anonymous?

Investigations in this area had uncovered some rather disturbing information. Attempts to track down the anonymous donor had led instead to his lawyer. The reason for this, as the lawyer explained, was that the donor himself, whose name he could not reveal, was now dead. After sending in the skull he had committed suicide. His lawyer explained that since coming into possession of the crystal skull this man had experienced a whole series of awful tragedies – his wife had died, his son had a terrible accident that left him brain dead and he had gone bankrupt. Finally, he had decided to end it all.

The question was, did all this have anything to do with the curse of the skull? Dr Walsh seemed quite convinced that the anonymous donor had simply decided to take his own life as a result of the tragedies that had befallen him and that these tragedies had nothing to do with the crystal skull.

However, Dr Walsh had noticed something rather strange that had been happening ever since the skull had come into her possession:

‘I don’t believe the skull is cursed… But, since I’ve had it in the office it seems to attract other skulls because I’ve gotten calls and had people bring in several other skulls and I keep hearing of new ones.’

The surprising thing was that what Jane Walsh had been experiencing was very similar to what had been happening to us. As we continued our investigations we kept finding that each time we heard about a crystal skull, its owner or someone associated with it would put us in touch with someone else who would know of another one.

After all this, Dr Walsh too had become very interested in finding out where her own and the other crystal skulls had really come from. Was her skull really Aztec and once the property of the Mexican President, as the handwritten note accompanying it had stated? Dr Walsh, it seemed, was not at all convinced that this was necessarily the case, particularly given that its anonymous donor also claimed that it was purchased in Mexico City, as recently as 1960. So, like us, she had set about investigating crystal skulls and had even started writing a research paper about them in an attempt to determine where they had come from.¹

Dr Walsh had been investigating the subject for some time now, but she had not yet reached any firm conclusions. However, having done so much apparently inconclusive research, she was getting more and more determined to solve the mystery. She had decided that the only way to get to the bottom of it was to carry out more rigorous scientific testing. That is why the British Museum had put us in touch with her. For it was now her plan to try to bring the crystal skulls together in order to carry out a series of tests. The idea was that by having as many of the crystal skulls as practically possible gathered in one place it would be possible to compare their artistic styles and do comparative scientific tests in order to finally establish their authenticity. Dr Walsh hoped also to mount an exhibition for the public.

We were amazed when we heard of Jane Walsh’s plan. The ancient legend itself had said that one day all of the crystal skulls would be rediscovered and brought together, and at that time they would reveal their important and sacred information for the good of all humankind. Could it be that now was the time for their information to be made available? Were the skulls coming together for the start of the new millennium? It was beginning to look as though all was about to be revealed.

But the problems were many. For one thing Dr Walsh seemed not at all convinced that any of the crystal skulls were genuinely ancient. She tried to explain the depth and complexity of the problem by telling us about some of the other crystal skulls she had now come across.

Dr Walsh had looked first to other museums around the world and had soon found yet another near life-size crystal skull. This one, she explained, was housed in the Trocadero Museum, or Musée de l’Homme, in Paris. The Parisian skull, though smaller than the Mitchell-Hedges, the Smithsonian and the British Museum skulls, is still of a reasonable size. Made from clear quartz, it is around 4.5” (11 cm) high, weighs only 6 lb (2.75 kg) and has no separate jaw-bone. But the interesting thing about this skull is that it is very stylized in its features, with very rounded eyes and chiselled teeth, very much in the style attributed to the ancient Aztecs and their close neighbours the Mixtecs.

This skull also has a vertical hole drilled right through it from top to bottom. As Jane Walsh explained, a horizontal hole would mean that it was in the same style as the real human skulls the Aztecs used to skewer onto skull racks, which in her opinion would indicate ‘an almost certain pre-Columbian provenance’, in other words, that it was genuinely ancient or at least dated to before the arrival of Christopher Columbus and the Europeans in the Americas. But a vertical hole indicated that it might have been used by the early Spanish conquerors, perhaps as the base for a crucifix. However, the hole on the Parisian skull was known to be ‘bi-conical’ in shape, indicating that it was definitely made by hand, not machine tools, and was therefore probably made before the arrival of the Spanish.

We spoke to the curator of the American collection at the Trocadero Museum, Daniel Levine, who is convinced that the skull they have is genuinely ancient and, he believes, Aztec. Monsieur Levine told us that French experts have already agreed that it was made by the Aztecs in the fourteenth or fifteenth century and that it may have been an ornament on a sceptre carried by an Aztec priest. Apparently ‘the style of the piece is characteristically Aztec’ and ‘the Aztecs are known to have done a lot of carvings of this type in rock crystal’. He indicated that the museum had also already carried out their own scientific tests on the skull. The bi-conical drill hole meant that the skull had definitely been made by hand and they had even found traces of copper tools like those used by the Aztecs on the skull’s surface. So the Trocadero Museum was quite convinced this skull, at least, was genuinely ancient and could see no need for further scientific testing.

But was there any evidence of exactly where it had really come from or when it had first been discovered? All Daniel Levine could tell us was that it had originally been given to the museum and had already been part of the Collection Française when proper records began back in the late 1800s.

So we spoke again to Dr Walsh, who pointed out that this was hardly sufficient evidence of a genuinely ancient origin. Indeed, one of Dr Walsh’s scientific colleagues had apparently pointed out to her that any traces of copper on the skull’s surface might not necessarily have been there right from the time the skull was made. Apparently some types of crystal polish, including those used today, contain copper compounds. So the traces of copper might be the result of someone polishing the skull only yesterday! Therefore, the copper traces and the fact that the skull was made by hand didn’t prove a thing.

Indeed, it seemed that Dr Walsh was gradually moving towards the view that perhaps none of the crystal skulls was genuinely ancient. Like most archaeologists, she seemed particularly concerned that, to her knowledge, none had been found on any official or properly recorded archaeological dig. There were no official records to prove the Mitchell-Hedges crystal skull had been found at Lubaantun, while the British Museum crystal skull, bought from Tiffany’s, was said to have been brought from Mexico by a Spanish soldier of fortune, but again there were no records of where he had got it, or even anything to show that this was really anything more than a story. The Smithsonian’s own skull could have come from just about anywhere, and so for that matter could the Parisian skull.

Dr Walsh had now also come across some other skulls that were of equally mysterious, and therefore potentially dubious, origin and she put us in touch with their owners. These included two small skulls, less than 5” (12 cm) high, one clear, one cloudy, with fixed jaws, brought to her office by an antique dealer called Kirk Landauer from Maryland, near Washington. Judging by the photos he sent us, the clear one looked almost like a monkey’s head, the other one like no creature ever known. The cloudy skull had apparently been found in 1916 in the Yucatán area of southern Mexico; the clear skull was bought from an antique dealer in Mexico during the 1920s. But no exact details of either find were available.

Yet another small skull was brought to Dr Walsh’s office by the son of another antique dealer, who lived in Altadena, California. This man, Larry Hughes, told us he had bought it around seven years previously from a wealthy man who said it had originally been collected in the 1880s or ’90s, but he didn’t know where from and there were no documents accompanying it. Again this skull was only about 4” high (10 cm), cloudy and with a fixed jaw. It also looked a bit like a monkey’s head, but it had circles, like goggles, around its eyes. As Dr Walsh explained, this was a symbol traditionally associated with the Mesoamerican rain god, Tlaloc. The skull also had what looked like an ancient hieroglyph carved across the top. Dr Walsh said she had shown a photo of this skull to two Mexican archaeologists, who immediately identified it as being in the style of the ancient Mesoamerican town of Xochicalco. As she later confirmed in her research report:

‘Two Mexican archaeologists, to whom I showed the glyph, instantly recognized it as Xochicalco in style… A Xochicalco-style glyph, if authentic, would date this particular artifact to somewhere between 800 and 950 AD, predating by several centuries the work of [both] Aztec and Mixtec lapidaries [or stone carvers]’ ²

Another interesting thing about this little skull was that it also fitted the description of one we later heard about from a crystal skull researcher named Joshua Shapiro. He had seen such a skull in 1989. It apparently belonged to an old Mexican named José Iníquez, who claimed to have found it in 1942 during a field trip to some ancient Mayan ruins in the Yucatán with his school party. He also said that after this skull came into his possession every dream and desire he had ever had in his life had been fulfilled. But he had died in 1993 and the whereabouts of his skull thereafter remained unknown.

Suddenly tiny crystal skulls seemed to be turning up just about everywhere we looked, even in leading museums. Jane Walsh said she thought these little skulls were actually more likely to be ancient than the larger ones. But the ancient legend Ceri and I had heard specifically said that there were 13 life-size crystal skulls, so we were only interested in testing the larger ones.

Dr Walsh had, however, come across one other life-size crystal skull. It belonged, she said, to a woman named JoAnn Parks who lived in Houston, Texas. Like all the other skulls, it was of mysterious origin and surrounded by claims of miraculous powers. Whilst Jane Walsh herself did not believe any of these claims, she was keen to get hold of this skull for the scientific tests so, while she continued with her research paper, we set off for Texas.