June 20, 2008:

CRYSTAL SKULLS

With the opening of a film with crystal skulls as a main theme, there are a wealth of articles suddenly appearing about them. There are even more misconceptions about crystal skulls than there are actual skulls. There are a number of misunderstandings and misconceptions about them that are repeated time after time. Here are a few of the major ones, and some of the misunderstandings that arise from them:

 1.                  That quartz is second only to diamond in hardness. The next mineral in Mohs hardness to diamond is corundum, hardness 9. Quartz only has a Mohs hardness of 7 (and is the Mohs mineral that establishes the hardness of 7), as opposed to diamond’s hardness of 10. There are literally hundreds of minerals harder than quartz. In fact, the quartz varieties usually cut as gems (amethyst, citrine, smoky quartz) are not especially good for ring stones, in that they abrade very rapidly from every-day wear.

2.                  Quartz can only be cut by diamond. Any of the hundreds of minerals harder than quartz will cut quartz (including quartz itself)

3.                  Quartz has to be carefully cut or it shatters. Quartz is one of the easiest minerals to cut specifically because it doesn’t have structural properties that make it sensitive, with the exception of heat sensitivity. Overheating quartz in the polishing stage will sometimes crack (not shatter) it.

4.                  Hitting quartz on a growth axis will shatter it. Quartz has four growth (crystallographic) axes – three in the horizontal and one in the vertical. None of these are shock sensitive. Quartz is composed of a three-dimensional, tightly interlocking lattice of silicate tetrahedrons, the structure of which allows no directional zones of weakness - unlike diamond, with which the writers seem to be confusing with quartz.

 Construction and origin of the skulls:

Many of the misconceptions about the skulls stem directly from the above misunderstandings about the working properties of quartz. The base assumption seems to be that quartz is difficult to work. It is exactly the opposite: as stated above, it is one of the easiest minerals to work. If the skulls are the product of ancient workmanship, the supposed working times for their creation are wildly overestimated. A large quartz crystal could have been easily sawn in two (as in the Mitchell-Hedges skull, which I have had the opportunity to examine) using a device called a mud saw. Fine sand or mud is fed into a groove in which a blade moves back and forth, abrading the crystal. This blade was metal for the Romans (who sawed marble into sheets with it) but bamboo, strong vine, or even another stone (such as obsidian) chipped to a fine edge will also work. Even with a crystal the size of the one from which the Mitchell-Hedges skull was created could have been sawn through in less than a week. Mud saws using metal blades and modern abrasives are still used to saw through enormous jade boulders in Alaska.

The initial shaping of the skull would not have been from wearing it away with sand. It would have been from a process called cobbing – the chipping away of small portions of the crystal using another stone. This process was still being used to pre-form quartz crystal balls in Japan as late as the turn of the 20^th century. This can be done because quartz is not shock sensitive.

If the skulls were shaped in ancient times there is no reason why some kind of rotary wheel could not have been used. The authorities the writer quotes seem to think that use of the wheel and axle in Mesoamerica is newly discovered. Wheeled toys have been known in early Mesoamerican cultures for most of the 20^th century, although it is true that it was never used in a larger scale for transport.

 It also needs to be remembered that the Mesoamericans were routinely shaping jade. Although it doesn’t have a high Mohs hardness, it has an extremely high lapidary hardness. This means it has great resistance to abrasion. By comparison, quartz has a very low lapidary hardness – it is very easy to abrade. Even without the use of wheels, quartz can easily be abraded using something as simple as a piece of sandstone held in the hand.

 Based on my personal experience of working quartz, even if the Mitchell-Hedges skull (using this as an example, because it is the most complex of the supposed ancient skulls) was created by the Maya, I see no reason that it could not have been completed in less than three years – and possibly significantly less. Unlike, of course, the decades many writers (and some ‘researchers) suggest.

Finally the question of where these skulls originated. There is no doubt that the skull was a major mythological motif in all of the Mesoamerican cultures. But the fact that not a single skull has been found in a verifiable archaeological context (including the Mitchell-Hedges skull) and the fact that to the best of my knowledge skulls in other materials have not been found (although wall-carvings and paintings of skulls are widespread in Mesoamerica) leads me to question whether they are genuine Mesoamerican artefacts. They could be, but the evidence is weak at best. However, crystal skulls were produced in Germany (particular in the lapidary centre at Idar-Oberstein) in the early Renaissance. Other lapidary products in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London from the same period show a skill and complexity of execution modern lapidaries would have difficulty in reproducing. My personal opinion is that the Mitchell-Hedges skull was produced during this period, probably as a Master Piece of a Journeyman lapidary. The overall technical brilliance in the execution of the skull is beyond anything seen on Mesoamerican stone artefacts.

Where have so many misunderstanding come about? First and foremost, the people studying them are not well enough versed in the variety of disciplines needed to form a complete picture. While Hewlett-Packard (for example) produces millions of quartz resonators for watches and other electronic applications (except computers – quartz has never been used in computers), their processes are undertaken by technicians operating essentially automatic machinery. They are not lapidaries, and do not and cannot shape quartz in large-scale, three-dimensional objects by hand. This is not to fault the early researchers. They did the best they could with what was available to them at the time. And third, archaeology in the 1920s and 30s (and before) when some of the skulls 'appeared', was not a million miles away from Indiana Jones, and wildly unlike modern, careful, scientific archaeology. Beyond that, Mitchell-Hedges was not even a proper archaeologist by the standards of the time. He did little or no scientific excavation, and could be considered to be more a looter of antiquities. He even 'opened' one pyramid by the use of dynamite!

Given all of these factors, it is not surprising that there has been a great deal of mis-interpretation. But, in my opinion, it is time to move on.