Purported ancient crystal skulls proved to be fakes

by Rich Bowden - May 23 2008, 01:12

Two crystal skulls held at the British Museum, supposed to have been carved by ancient civilisations, have been uncovered as fakes.

The skulls, carved from blocks of clear or milky quartz crystal rock were claimed to be the work of early Aztecs or Mayan civilisations however the team's investigation discovered they were made by tools not available to these people.

A team including Margaret Sax, from the British Museum in London, and Professor Ian Freestone, from Cardiff University, closely examined the skulls held in the British Museum and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC and found they had been fashioned using a spinning disc-shaped tool made from copper or another suitable metal, technology not used by the early American civilisations.

"There are about a dozen or more of these crystal skulls. Except for the British Museum skull and one in Paris, they seem to have entered public awareness since the 60s, with the interest in quartz and the New Age movement," Professor Ian Freestone, from Cardiff University, who was on the investigating team, told BBC News.

"It does appear that people have been making them since then. Some of them are quite good, but some of them look like they were produced with a Black & Decker in someone's garage," Prof. Freestone said.

He added: "There seems to be the assumption that if it is roughly worked, it is more likely to have been made by a traditional society. That's untrue of course, because people were quite sophisticated. They might not have had modern tools, but they did a good job."

Crystal skulls have been the subject of a number of science fiction dramas including the latest Indiana Jones adventure.

The teams' work is published in the Journal of Archaeological Science. 

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