Talk:Crystal skull
Anyone who wants one of the 13 known crystal skulls worldwide can get them here: http://www.mineralminers.com/html/crystal_skulls.stm Too silly for Wikipedia? Nah! Wetman 05:53, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)~
- Thanks. I guess the ones being mass produced and sold are part of the unknown variety ;-) -- Infrogmation 06:06, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Er... So what's the deal with these things?
This article seems a little vague and confusing... the introduction in particular reads like a fight between a new age-y editor and skeptical one.... What actual scientific information is there on these things? Apparently the "Mitchell-Hedges skull" comes from "latin America", but I already knew that. Do the others come from Latin America too? Wherabouts exactly? What is the actual history behind the discovery of these skulls? Do they all come from the same areas? Are they all now considered to be fakes as the Mitchell-Hedges skull and the "skull held by the British Museum" are believed to be? If not, why and how where the others made? What significance are the believed to have held to the people who made them? I'm only able to find a whole host of bizarre new-agey links on the net about this, and while thats certainly interesting, i'd like some concrete information to balance that with as well.
The Mitchell-Hedges Skull
There is only one skull that is actually of an unusual origin, or at least that has scientific data backing up the idea that it was not created in a conventional way, or could even be created today. That is the Mitchell-Hedges Skull.
Most of the other 'skulls' are new age garbage, without any data showing them to be anything more than traditional Mayan carvings, or, more commonly, modern forgeries.
The original Crystal Skull was seen as a sacred object by a group of Mayan priests, and they created many quartz skulls to honour the real skull. Their skulls possessed none of the properties of the original.
More Info On Mitchell-Hedges
"Without doubt the most famous and enigmatic ancient crystal is the skull, discovered in 1927 by F.A. Mitchell-Hedges atop a ruined temple at the ancient internal linkMayan city of Lubaantum, in British Honduras, now Belize.
The skull was made from a single block of clear quartz, 5 inches high, 7 inches long and 5 inches wide. It is about the size of a small human cranium, with near perfect detail. In 1970, art restorer Frank Dorland was given permission to submit the skull to tests at the internal linkHewlitt-Packard Laboratories. Revealed were many internal linkanomalies.
The skull had been carved with total disregard to the natural crystal axis, ainternal linkprocess unheard-of in modern crystallography. No metal tools were used. Dorland was unable to find any tell-tale scratch marks. Indeed, most metals would have been ineffectual. A modern penknife cannot mark it. From tiny patterns near the carved surfaces, Dorland determined it was first chiseled into rough form, probably using diamonds. The finer shaping, grinding and polishing, Dorland believes, was done with innumerable applications of internal linkwater and silicon-crystal sand. If true, it would have taken 300 years of continuous labor. We must accept this almost unimaginable feat, or admit to the use of some form of lost technology.
Modern science is stumped to explain the skill and knowledge incorporated. As Garvin summarized:It is virtually impossible today, in the time when men have climbed mountains on the internal linkmoon, to duplicate this achievement...It would not be a question of skill, patience and internal linktime. It would simply be impossible. As one crystallographer from Hewlitt-Packard said, The damned thing shouldn't be."
If you had just clicked on that crystalinks link you could have accessed that information.
This information on Mitchell-Hedges is true, as confirmed by a former employee of Hewlett Packard, but the other skulls seem to be mostly bogus.
Hewlett Packard story
- I moved the below from the article to here pending citation/source info, as it seems to be in dispute. -- Infrogmation 15:25, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
Interestingly enough, in 1970 the Mitchell-Hedges family loaned the skull to Hewlett-Packard Laboratories (CITATION NEEDED!! And I mean a citation that goes back straight to Hewlett-Packard, and not some New Age demagogue who has a friend who has a friend who's an ex-employee of HP's main parts supplier) where it was put through extensive testing. They found that the skull was carved against the natural axis of the crystal, which has to be taken into account to prevent the crystal from shattering. This is true even today with modern methods of crystal carving which implement high precision lazers. Furthermore, they were unable to find microscopic scratches, which would indicate that metal tools were used to carve the skull. Art restorer Frank Dorland, who oversaw the testing, hypothesized that the skull was roughly shaped with diamonds and then detailed with a gentle solution of silicon sand and water. This would require man hours equalling aproximately 300 years to complete.
Question
I don't understand why these would be so troublesome to create. We've got lasers that can do very fine precision cutting...so !BAM! you've got a crystal skull...what's so mysterious or supernatural about that? 300 years? try a couple days.
[*] It was found sometime in the 60s or 70s if I'm not mistaken. Only now (2006) are we barely getting close to being able to replicate it