The Mystery of the Crystal Skulls

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Figure 1: Map of Mesoamerica (ancient central america)

1. THE LEGEND (#ulink_a4441046-694e-577a-b0b9-7c01cf9313ed)

It was just before dawn and we were deep in the jungle, trekking through the dense undergrowth to get to the ruins of the once great Mayan city buried somewhere deep within. In the darkness of the rainforest your mind starts to play tricks on you. You start to see and hear all manner of strange things – creatures, spirits, shadows of the unknown. It was then we heard the terrifying roar of a jaguar. In one split second that sound, cutting through the background of jungle noises, and all too close at hand, shattered our illusions of self-confidence, suddenly reminding us of our own delicate mortality. We stopped, for an instant frozen with fear, before turning in our tracks and stumbling off, as fast as we could, into the vast darkness of the unknown.

We were in one of the most beautiful places in the world, Central America, on the holiday of a lifetime, visiting the ancient Mayan ruins of Tikal in Guatemala. We were trying to reach the crumbling temples, palaces and pyramids before dawn. There we would wait for the sun to rise slowly from the surrounding greenery to cast whispers of yellow-golden light over the crumbling remains of this once great civilization, as if bringing it back to life. The jungle canopy is over 200 ft (60 m) high and yet the crumbling pyramids, some still covered in creepers and vines, reach right up through it to the heavens above. From atop one of these great mountains of human endeavour, whichever way you turn, the rainforest stretches as far as the eye can see. It could be a blanket of clouds or a vast ocean below, a beautiful ocean of green, where bright-coloured macaw and toucans sweep across golden pyramids that rise like rocks from the shore.

It was in this forgotten city that we saw our first skull, that symbol of death which normally strikes fear into the heart of modern man. It was a stone skull, carved into the side of one of the pyramids. To us this was a monstrous image. But our guide, Carlos, explained that to the ancients who had carved it, the skull had quite a different meaning. The Mayans and other ancient tribes of Central America had a different understanding of death from our own. To them death was not a full stop. It was not something to be afraid of, but rather something to look forward to, a great opportunity to pass into another dimension, a chance to join with the world of the spirits and the ancestors. To these ancient people death was part of the balance of nature, part of giving back to Mother Earth the life she had given. The skull, it seemed, was symbolic of this view. And then Carlos told us the legend of the crystal skulls…

According to an old Native American legend, there are 13 ancient crystal skulls, the size of human skulls, with movable jaws, that are said to speak or sing. These skulls are said to contain important information about the origins, purpose and destiny of mankind and answers to some of the greatest mysteries of life and the universe. It is said that this information is not only important to the future of this planet, but vital to the very survival of the human race. According to these ancient teachings, one day all of the crystal skulls will be rediscovered and brought together for their collective wisdom to be made available, but the human race must first be sufficiently evolved, both morally and spiritually, so as not to abuse this great knowledge.

This legend, said Carlos, had been handed down by generations of Native Americans over thousands of years. Indeed, as we were to discover, variations on this legend are found amongst several Native American tribes, from the Mayan and Aztec descendants of Central America to the Pueblo and Navajo Indians of what is now the south-western United States, right up even to the Cherokee and Seneca Indians in the north-eastern USA. The Cherokee version of the legend, for example, says that there are 12 planets in the cosmos inhabited by human beings and that there is one skull for each of these planets, plus a thirteenth skull vital to each of these worlds.

Of course, when we first heard Carlos’ brief words, standing on the steps of one of the pyramids of Tikal, we thought the legend was a fascinating story – a snippet of ancient mythology, a wonderful, colourful tale, but a story, just a story, nothing more than that. It was an interesting curiosity that we might just recount to friends when we got back home.

What we didn’t know then was that we were about to discover something that would change our view of the legend quite dramatically, something that would lead us on an adventure, on a journey of mystery, intrigue and wonder. It was to be a quest that would take us right across two continents, from the jungles and ancient ruins of Central America to the remote palm-fringed islands of Belize, and from the cold snows of Canada to the deserts of the United States. It would be a journey that would take us from the corridors of the British Museum in London and the laboratories of one of the world’s leading computer companies in California to a sacred gathering in a secret location deep in the mountains of Guatemala. Along the way we would meet some of the world’s leading scientists and archaeologists, encounter UFO investigators, psychics and mystics, and hear words of great wisdom from native elders, shamans and medicine men. We would uncover strange facts, hear ground-breaking new scientific theories and learn of ancient teachings kept secret for thousands of years. It was to be a journey where we would learn that things are not always as they seem and that truth can be stranger than fiction. It was also a personal voyage of discovery where we would explore our own attitudes to life and death and our place in the universe, an inner journey that would take us into the darkest reaches of the human soul.

In the meantime, before leaving the ruins of Tikal, Carlos told us a little more about the ancient Mayan civilization that had built the great city that now lay in ruins before us. It was a civilization which stretched across a vast area of Central America, from what is now southern Mexico in the north to Honduras in the south, and from the Pacific coast of Guatemala in the west to the Atlantic and Caribbean coast of Belize in the east. This area spanned the tropical forests of Chiapas, the highlands and steaming lowlands of Guatemala, and the huge expanse of low-lying savanna stretching out into the Atlantic Ocean known as the Yucatán Peninsula.

As Carlos explained, the ancient Maya built one of the most advanced and sophisticated civilizations the world has ever known. The cities that remain include the large, bold and militaristic Chichen Itzá; Uxmal, with its monumental architecture, carved snakes and weird ‘chac-mool’ figurines; the deeply aesthetic and beautifully proportioned Palenque; Tulum, set against the white sandy beaches and azure waters of the Caribbean Sea; and the once thriving metropolis of Tikal, which now stood crumbling before us, but which had once housed over 50,000 inhabitants.

We were still wandering in the ruins of Tikal just before nightfall, contemplating the achievements of this now almost forgotten people. Our guide and the handful of other tourists had gradually drifted away through the rainforest back to their temporary jungle lodge homes and we found ourselves alone in the Great Plaza of the old city just as the sun was going down. The plaza is a striking and somewhat eerie place tucked away in a small jungle clearing. To its north lie the 12 ruined temples of the North Acropolis, to the south the palace of the Central Acropolis. To the east and the west rise two great pyramids, known as the Temple of the Jaguar and the Temple of the Masks (see plate no. 3 (#litres_trial_promo)).

What struck me first about these pyramids is just how steep they really are. In concept they are similar to the pyramids everyone knows from Egypt, but they are smaller than the famous pyramids of Giza, far steeper and do not have smooth sides. Instead they are built in huge layers, or giant steps, and each pyramid has a crowning temple on top.

Every aspect of the pyramids’ design was sacred to their ancient builders. The first nine large steps represent the ‘lower world’ and the walls and crown of the temple on top bring the total to 13, precisely the number of gods in the Mayan ‘upper world’. The crowning stone carvings on top of each temple represent the thirteenth and ultimate layer. People can only ascend to these great temples by one route and on one side, where far smaller steps are provided. The number of human-sized steps is always significant. In this case there were 52. Like 13, this number is also important in the complex, sacred and divinatory Mayan calendar.

As we looked at these great temples in the fast fading light I suddenly felt compelled to make the steep climb up the eastern face of the Temple of the Jaguar. While Ceri wandered around taking photos in the plaza below, I reached the top of the pyramid, quite out of breath, just as the evening sunlight was turning to gold. Looking out from the doorway of the temple, just below the thirteenth layer, the towering pyramid of the Temple of the Masks looked straight back at me across the plaza as if mirroring my gaze. Its face was illuminated sun-coloured gold and behind it lay a deep sea of green against the background of the fast darkening sky. It was the most beautiful view I had ever seen.

And then another vision entered my mind. It seemed to seep in from around me as if entering my veins. Of course it was just my imagination, but it seemed under no conscious control. Though there was no one else there I distinctly felt the strange sensation of other people coming up the steps behind me then turning to stand at my side. I felt as though I was surrounded by a group of ancient priests in full ceremonial dress, with long flowing robes and elaborate headdresses of feathers. They appeared to be performing some kind of ceremony, as they had done many times before. It seemed to be about celebrating and respecting some greater power, but there was also an air of foreboding about what might be to come. It was almost as if I could hear two notes, a high and a low. Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, it was gone.

Of course this all seemed quite crazy in the cold light of day, but this strange figment of the imagination remained with me as we went on our way.

The following morning we climbed aboard a clapped out old school bus and headed for Belize, the neighbouring country to Guatemala, amidst warnings we might get robbed by bandits en route to the coast.

Belize is a small country sandwiched between Guatemala and the Caribbean Sea, but it has great natural variety, ranging from a turquoise coral reef lined coast strewn with small islands or atolls to mangrove swamp and palm-covered shores to an interior of jungle-clad mountains. Belize is also home to a great variety of people of different races, many of them refugees from one difficult period of history or another. Until recently it was also home to many pirates.

As we sat in one of the many bars on the small island of Caye Caulker, our host behind the counter seemed to be getting immense pleasure out of recounting this part of the country’s grisly history to us. Not only did he know all about pirates, he even looked like one as he proceeded to explain that Belize had once been a veritable haven for them. The old trade routes between Africa and the New World lay close by, but the coastline had another advantage. In the old days of seafaring, the coral reef had been a great navigational hazard. Many ships had been wrecked there quite naturally and so become easy prey to the pirates. It was possible to navigate past the reef safely to the shore, but only if you knew the way ‘like the back of your tattooed hand’. This meant the pirates could make themselves quite at home along the coast, protected by the reef, and live without much fear of ever being caught by the naval authorities.

Many of the pirates became familiar with the native Mayans and even took to adopting some of their customs. The most obvious example of this was the famous pirates’ flag, the skull and crossed bones. Apparently this was a very positive and religious symbol to the Mayans. Of course it became a symbol of fear to the average seafarer, but it is by no means clear that this was the pirates’ original intention, although it was certainly the result of their actions.

Back in the bar, our conversation inevitably drifted towards the subject of buried treasure. Had any ever been found? Our barman was not aware of a treasure chest ever having been washed up on the shore, but there was something that might be considered buried treasure that had been found on an archaeological dig in the intetior way back in the 1920s. To our amazement, it transpired that this treasure was an actual crystal skull. The barman told us that the skull had been found in the lost city of Lubaantun, a Mayan name meaning ‘the City of Fallen Stones’, which lay in the jungles of Belize. We were stunned. We had thought little more about the legend of the skulls. That a real crystal skull had actually been found seemed unbelievable. We had to know more.

I asked our host if the skull had anything to do with the legend. He didn’t know. But what he did know was that ever since the skull had been discovered, truly incredible claims had been made about it. Apparently many people who had spent time alone with it claimed to have seen or heard things in its presence. The skull was said to have a distinctive glow, like an aura, extending around it, and those who had gazed deep into its interior claimed to have seen images there. Many said they were able to see the past or the future inside the skull and even that it had the ability to influence future events.

Others claimed they had heard noises, like the soft chanting of human voices, emanating from the skull. In fact, so many people had heard the skull ‘talking’ or ‘singing’ to them that it was now quite widely known as ‘the talking skull’ or ‘singing skull’, just as in the old legend.

The origins of the skull were, it seemed, a mystery. There were all kinds of theories about where it had originally come from, our barman said, including that it had initially been brought by extra-terrestrials. He had heard that some incredible photos had even been taken to ‘prove’ it. Whether or not it really had anything to do with the ancient legend he didn’t know. But he had also heard that it was one of the world’s largest gemstones. As a piece of jewellery alone, it was said to have been valued at millions of dollars!

We were fascinated – and as film-makers, we certainly thought that a real crystal skull would make a great subject for a documentary. So we asked the barman if he knew any more. Who had found the crystal skull? Where was it now? Might we be able to film it?

He said that the skull had been found by a young woman during archaeological excavations back in the 1920s, but that it was now somewhere in Canada. That was pretty much all he could tell us. But he did add, perhaps rather inevitably, that he could arrange for us to visit the site of the skull’s discovery if we were really interested in finding out more. He just happened to ‘know a man’ who knew a man who could take us there. But it would obviously cost us ‘a dollar or two’. Although some of the claims about the crystal skull did sound a little far-fetched, at least it seemed as though a real crystal skull had been found, and it was certainly intriguing. So we haggled a little over the price and finally asked the barman to make all the necessary arrangements for a trip the following day.

And so began our journey of discovery, our quest to find out the truth about the crystal skulls. Though we didn’t know it then, our investigations would take us from the cutting edge of modern science to an exploration of ancient traditions that stretch back deep into the mists of time. We would gradually uncover ideas that would challenge many of our basic assumptions about the past history of this planet and the evolution of mankind. What we learned would lead us to question how we currently think about the world, the universe and our place within it. We would think again about where we as individuals and as a society have come from, where we belong in the world and where we are going. Our whole way of looking at the world would be dramatically altered. Finally we would hear of startling prophecies about mankind’s immediate future on this small planet and be told by native elders that now we had ‘the keys to the future’ we would ‘tell the world about it’.

But in the meantime, we set off on the first leg of our journey to explore the mystery of the crystal skulls…

2. THE DISCOVERY (#ulink_d38be7f5-5c30-57a8-8b32-a7679769a1fc)

At sunrise the following morning we set off for the lost city of Lubaantun. We found ourselves in a small motor boat snaking our way through the swampy waterways which dominate the coastline of Belize. After the inevitable two-hour wait for our four-wheel drive vehicle to turn up at a banana plantation jetty, we were off on a bumpy ride over rough jungle track deep into the interior. There was a timeless quality about the Mayan villages we passed along the way – the wooden huts, the sound of chickens, the children laughing and playing, and the women washing their clothes in the river. It felt as if we had entered a different world.

We finally reached our destination in the early afternoon, only to find a very sorry-looking archaeological site. But there was a guide who still manned this almost forgotten place. He was a local Mayan named Catarino Cal. Dressed in regulation park-keeper’s beige uniform and Wellington boots, he came over and greeted us warmly in excellent English. It turned out that we were the only tourists to have ventured to this remote setting in days.

Catarino proceeded to show Chris and I round the site. He explained that it had originally been excavated by a British explorer called Frederick Mitchell-Hedges back in 1924. Although it had been cleared then, after decades of neglect the jungle had crept back in to try to reclaim its former captive and by now the ancient pyramids were only just about discernible. But we couldn’t help noticing that the individual stones from which each of the structures was made were not the simple rectangular blocks of stone used at Tikal. Instead each stone was quite unique and slightly rounded or curved to fit in with all the other stones around it. So there were no simple and uniform straight lines, no horizontal or vertical layers. Instead each building was curving and flowing, almost a living work of art, with areas that bulged and receded almost as if the structure were actually breathing. Indeed, each one was constructed so carefully in this almost organic fashion that it seems the builders had no need for cement or any other type of binding material.

Now, however, these beautiful pyramids were very dilapidated. As Catarino explained, this was due to the fact that a later party of explorers in the 1930s had tried to discover what was still inside them using the fastest and most modern technique available to them – dynamite – at the same time giving a whole new meaning to the name ‘the City of Fallen Stones’!

As a result, Catarino explained, the city was no longer one of the best examples of the achievements of the ancient Maya, about whom he proceeded to tell us a little more. Theirs had, it seemed, been a highly developed civilization. Although considered Stone Age people, living on peasant agriculture close to the land, with few material possessions or technical instruments, they were expert architects, astronomers, scientists and mathematicians. They possessed a complex system of hieroglyphic writing and numbering. They also built up a vast network of independent city states, linked by roads and boasting some of the most magnificent cities the world has ever seen, with towering pyramids, exquisite palaces, temples and shrines, all decorated with the most elaborately carved stone ‘stelae’. Each city was a distinctive work of art, expertly planned, designed and executed, with many buildings, including astronomical observatories, carefully aligned with the sun, the moon, the planets and the stars.

The whole system came complete with its own form of government, politics and administration, its own science based on the movements of the planets and the stars, and a whole religion based on the rhythms of the natural world. The ancient Maya believed in a complete pantheon of gods and super-heroes who demanded regular tribute of ceremony, religious ritual and the occasional human sacrifice. They were also great believers in clairvoyance and divination. They were avid watchers of the skies and the movements of the heavenly bodies and placed great emphasis on their own powers of prophecy and prediction. Through their complex system of calendrics they were even able to predict eclipses accurately.

The Mayan civilization flourished for over 1,000 years from around 300 BC. Dynasties grew, royal leaders were adorned with elaborate costumes, priests gave guidance and performed strange esoteric rituals, local wars were fought and peace was brokered. And then suddenly the cities were abandoned. Around AD 830, well before the arrival of the Europeans in the Americas, the ‘Classic’ Maya simply left their great cities to be taken over by the jungle and slowly crumble to dust. As far as anyone could tell from the evidence left behind, no famine or drought had taken place, no disease and no great war had broken out. It was a mystery – over 1,000 years of development, of growth and refinement, and a culture that reached extraordinary spiritual, scientific and artistic heights … and then nothing, with no explanation at all.

In fact nobody really knew where the Maya had originally come from or, for that matter, where they had got the advanced knowledge necessary to build their great civilization in such a short space of time. There remained many mysteries about the ancient Maya.

As we wandered around the crumbling pyramids pondering why the ancient Mayan civilization had simply disappeared, Catarino spoke again. ‘One of the strangest things the Maya left behind was found right here at Lubaantun.’

He reached in and pulled something out of his pocket. It was an old black-and-white photograph that had definitely seen better days.

‘This was discovered in the 1920s by Mr Mitchell-Hedges’ daughter Anna when she was 17 years old.’

He handed us the dog-eared photo. My eyes were immediately drawn to the image. It was unmistakably a photograph of a real crystal skull. It was an extraordinary object, at once horrifying and yet beautiful. Even in that tattered old photo, the skull had a strange, mesmerizing quality. As I stared into those hollow crystal eyes, I was captivated.

As Chris handed back the photo, I wanted to know more. The image of the skull had drawn us in, raising questions that demanded answers. Who had made such an object and why? Where was it now? Were there any others like it and if so, where? Was this one of the 13 skulls of legend? The questions raced through my mind. Now we knew for sure that a real crystal skull did exist we felt compelled to find out more.

The first question was, where had Catarino got this photo? We were a little surprised when he said it was Anna Mitchell-Hedges herself who had given it to him. After all, this was the woman he said had originally discovered the crystal skull way back in the 1920s. How could this be?

Catarino explained that Anna Mitchell-Hedges had subsequently returned several times to visit the place of the skull’s discovery and her last visit had been in 1987. We worked out that if Anna had discovered the skull as a teenager in the 1920s, she would probably now be in her late eighties. But was she still alive?

According to Catarino, when Anna had made her last trip back she had been a very elderly woman. He had got the impression that she had come back to see the site one last time before she died. Given these words, it now seemed very unlikely that she was still around to tell the tale.

As Catarino was speaking, the shadows started lengthening across the ancient ruins and we realized it was time to leave. We thanked Catarino for his patience with our questions and wandered back to our vehicle, wondering how we could ever track down this old lady. We were just climbing into the truck when Catarino came rushing over.

‘Wait, wait,’ he said. ‘I remember. Anna Mitchell-Hedges did give me her address, but it was a long time ago and I don’t know if I’ve still got it.’