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But we had to leave there and then. Our driver was getting impatient. So we swapped addresses with Catarino and he assured us he would look for Anna’s address and send it on to us if he found it.
As we made our way back to the coast for the last few days of our holiday, the whole story began to seem somehow unreal. A young girl on an archaeological dig finding an ancient artefact known only in legend seemed so unlikely, so impossibly romantic. In any case, we didn’t really expect to hear anything more from Catarino and it was soon time to put the whole idea of crystal skulls out of our minds as we returned to the everyday realities of life in Britain.
But we had only been home for a few weeks when a letter did arrive from Belize. It was from Catarino. He had found Anna Mitchell-Hedges’ address. It was in Canada. We were delighted and wrote to her, albeit with some trepidation. We were unsure we would get any answer and half expected that if we did it would only be to inform us that Anna had now passed away. So when a letter did arrive back from Canada, we opened it nervously. As we read its contents, we were thrilled to find that Anna Mitchell-Hedges, now aged 88, was still living happily and healthily – and complete with her crystal skull. Not only that, but she would be only too pleased to tell us the story of the skull’s discovery.
Anna had enclosed a copy of her father’s autobiography, Danger, My Ally,
and from this, together with subsequent telephone calls to Anna, we were able to piece together the remarkable tale.
The story began in the Britain of the 1920s, with Anna’s father, Frederick Albert, or ‘Mike’, Mitchell-Hedges (1882-1959), a real Indiana Jones-type figure, who had adopted Anna when she was a young orphan. For many years Anna’s life remained inextricably linked to that of her father. She had never married and had accompanied him on many of his overseas voyages.
‘My father’s great love was ancient archaeology,’ she explained. ‘He had a very enquiring mind. He wanted to know more about the past and was the sort of person who liked to find things out for himself. He questioned the way things were and didn’t like to accept what other people told him.’
Indeed, according to Anna, Frederick Mitchell-Hedges had been something of a legend in his own lifetime. He was your archetypal British adventurer-explorer, determined to make his mark in the twilight years of the British Empire. He was a flamboyant, charismatic and somewhat unconventional character who had no time for the petty niceties of suburban English middle-class life, and certainly no time for what he considered the boring nine-to-five existence of the various office jobs, in banking and the stock market, he had tried during his early career.
Instead he had turned to a life of adventure and exploration. His motto, ‘Life which is lived without zest and adventure is not life at all’, spurred him on in his various overseas missions ‘to see parts of the world no white man had ever seen before’. He funded his trips largely through silver-trading and lecturing. He enjoyed gambling and always allowed time to indulge his great love of deep sea fishing along the way. He was a man who seemed almost deliberately to court danger, at one stage apparently even finding himself taken prisoner by the famous Mexican bandit turned national hero Pancho Villa, unwillingly caught up in his border raids against the United States. He travelled extensively and his passion for adventure found its greatest fulfilment in organizing great voyages of exploration and discovery to far-flung places, all the while fuelled by his obsession with the idea of finding the treasures of lost civilizations.
For Frederick Mitchell-Hedges was a member of the Maya Committee of the British Museum. He believed that the cradle of civilization was not in the Middle East, as was commonly supposed, but was the legendary lost continent of Atlantis. He was convinced this was a real civilization which had disappeared after some natural catastrophe and that its remnants were to be found in Central America. Moreover, he was determined to prove it.
To this end he gathered together a party of explorers who set sail from Liverpool in 1924
bound for British Honduras (now Belize). On reaching the Americas they docked at the small port of Punta Gorda, from where rumours had emanated of a lost city hidden deep in the jungle. They tried, at first unsuccessfully, to penetrate the interior via the crocodile infested Rio Grande, a trip which ended in disaster with the loss of all their medical supplies aboard a dug-out canoe which capsized and sank. As a result, one member of the team contracted malaria and later died. Only with the help of the local Kekchi Maya tribespeople, direct descendants of the ancient Maya, was the party finally able to penetrate the dense tropical rainforest and continue their search.
One day, deep in the jungle, they stumbled across some mounds of stone, overgrown with moss and foliage and suffocated by roots and vines. This was the sign they had been looking for. Frederick Mitchell-Hedges was heard to cry out, ‘We can’t be very far from this lost city!’
Work began in earnest as the party and local Mayan helpers toiled in the jungle heat to clear the site. It was back-breaking, seemingly relentless work, hacking away at the undergrowth and felling huge trees which piled themselves high on top of the ancient stones below. It took over a year to clear most of the undergrowth. When they had finished, the trees lay fallen before them in a great mountain of twisted branches. It was time to set fire to the what was left of the forest. The fire raged hot and high for days beneath the blistering sun. It burned ‘like a mighty blast furnace’, spewing out white hot ash and burning red embers all around. It dried the lips, reddened the eyes and almost choked the very life breath from the parry of explorers. But as the flames subsided the ruins of a once great city slowly emerged from amidst the smoke and burning ashes. As Frederick Mitchell-Hedges recounts in his autobiography, published in 1954:
‘We were amazed at the immensity of the ruins. Walls, terraces and mounds came into view as the holocaust swept onwards … in its centre had stood a mighty Citadel.
…The Citadel was raised above the level of the surrounding countryside and when it was first built it must have stood out like a glittering snow-white island, one hundred and fifty feet high. Around it spread the lesser dwellings and burial mounds of the common people and, further out, the thousands of acres of green, waving maize that must have been necessary to feed and support the large population.’
When the blaze had died away Mitchell-Hedges and his team were able to explore the great city:
‘It covered …a total area of six square miles with pyramids, palaces, terraces, mounds, walls, houses, subterranean chambers, [even] a huge amphitheatre designed to hold more than 10,000 people and appreachedby two great stairways. The Citadel was built over seven and a half acres and originally every foot had been covered with cut white stone… ‘
Mitchell-Hedges was amazed at the workmanship that had gone into the construction:
‘The magnitude of the labour required is almost beyond computation for their only tools were flint axes and chisels. I tried to square a similar block of stone with one of these implements, of which we found many. The task took an entire day.’
Frederick Mitchell-Hedges was to spend several years uncovering the secrets of the past that lay hidden in this lost city. During the long excavation of the site he was joined by Anna, or ‘Sammy’ as she was affectionately known to her father (see plates 32 and 33). She settled instantly to life in the jungle, as if she had been born to it. Anna shared something of the same rebellious spirit of adventure as her father and had a strong, inquisitive nature. It was this that led her to make her dramatic discovery.
It was a particularly hot day, an afternoon when the air itself seemed to stand still in the drowsy heat. The archaeological site, which was usually very busy, was strangely silent. ‘Everyone had gone to sleep. They had been worn out by the heat,’ remembers Anna. It was a few weeks before her seventeenth birthday. She was alone in her hut and feeling restless. Suddenly it occurred to her there was something she had been wanting to do for a while.
‘I thought this was my chance to go up and see how far I could see from the top of the highest building. Of course, I was strictly forbidden to climb up there because the stones were very loose and dangerous. But I had heard that you could see for miles around from the top of one of the pyramids and that intrigued me.’
So Anna headed towards the site, knowing that the excavation team were sleeping soundly in their beds.
She began to climb the tallest pyramid. Monkeys chattered in the distant trees and insects buzzed noisily around her as she picked her way carefully over the loose stones until, at last, she reached the top. It had been worth it:
‘Once I was up there I could see for miles around and it was very beautiful. I felt that I could have stayed there for a very long time. But the sun was very, very strong and there was something shining in my face. Way way down below through a crack I could see something shining back at me and I got very, very excited. How I got down from that building so quickly I don’t know, but when I got back I woke my father up and told him I’d seen something. Then, of course, I got a very bad scolding because I shouldn’t have gone up there.’
Anna’s father was disinclined to believe she had seen anything at all:
‘ “You imagined it,” he said.
‘But the following morning my father got all his men together. Before I got up he had everybody moving the stones from the top of the pyramid, because there was no way we could get in from the bottom. It took several weeks of carefully removing stones before a big enough hole was created.’
It was the day of Anna’s birthday when she volunteered to go down. She was lowered slowly by her father and his helpers into the narrow gap between the stones:
‘I had two ropes tied around my body and a light strapped to my head and I was let down into the opening. As I descended into the dark, I became very nervous, because there could be snakes and scorpions down there. When I got down I could still see something shining, reflecting the light on my head back at me. So I picked it up and I wrapped it in my shirt so it wouldn’t be hurt and I told them to pull me up as fast as they could.’
As Anna emerged from the temple into the bright daylight she wiped the dirt from the surface of the object and stared at it in wonder. ‘It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.’ The object was truly remarkable. It was life-size and looked almost exactly the same as a real human skull, and yet it was almost completely transparent. It was a real crystal skull. She held it up to the light. It was carved from a magnificent piece of clear rock crystal and caught and reflected the light in devastatingly beautiful, captivating and complex ways. And, miraculously, it appeared to have survived completely unscathed.
There was a moment of stunned silence as the small crowd of excavators gazed at this strange object, mesmerized by the way in which it captured and reflected the sunlight, sending it forth in a dazzle of light. Anna’s father took the skull from her and held it high for all to see. Then all at once everyone went wild with joy. ‘All the Maya helpers on the dig started laughing and crying. They kissed the ground and started hugging each other,’ Anna said. It was a magical moment, she recalled, perhaps the greatest moment in her long life. It was ‘as if an ancient and powerful force had returned to the lives of those present’.
As evening fell and the first stars appeared in the skies, Frederick Mitchell-Hedges placed the skull with great ceremony upon a makeshift altar the Mayans had built. As he and Anna looked on, fires were lit all around the skull and in the light of the blaze they could see the Mayans blessing it. Then the sound of drumming began. Mayan dancers appeared from the shadows, decorated with the plumes of jungle birds and the skins of jaguars. They moved with agility and grace to the rhythm of the drum. There was chanting and singing. It was a night of celebration, as Anna recalls. ‘They performed ceremonies, rituals and dances in front of the skull in the firelight.’
From the depths of the jungle people appeared, as if something had called to them across the forest.
‘It was as though a message of joy had been sent out across the Mayan lands. A lot of Maya came that we never even knew, and they came so quickly and from so far afield that I don’t know how they could possibly have heard of the skull in such a short space of time. But they knew.’
The celebrations around the skull continued for several days and amongst those who came to see it was a very old Mayan from a neighbouring village. He looked at the skull and told Anna and her father that it was Very, very ancient’.
‘The Mayan priests say it is over 100,000 years old. The Mayans told us the skull was made after the head of a great high priest many, many thousands of years ago because this priest was loved very much and they wanted to preserve their truth and wisdom forever. The old man said that the skull could be made to talk, but how it was done he wouldn’t say.’
Both Anna and her father were puzzled by the discovery. What they didn’t know at the time was that the object would prove to be one of the most mysterious ever found, that it would come to change Anna’s life and the lives of many others who have since come into contact with it. For, as we had heard, many have claimed that the skull has magical and mysterious powers. Some maintain, as the legend had said, that it is encoded with sacred knowledge that can enable us to tap into the secrets of the distant past and possibly even the future. Many others simply believe that the skull can profoundly influence the way people think and feel.
Although Frederick Mitchell-Hedges had no idea of the incredible claims that would come to surround the skull, he seemed to have been deeply affected by the reverence the local people showed for it. He was also concerned that, since the discovery, the Mayan workers had been considerably less willing to spend their days toiling on the dig. He gave it much thought and discussed it with Dr Thomas Gann, the consultant anthropologist on the expedition. Anna said, ‘My father decided that the skull was obviously so sacred and so important to the Mayan people that we couldn’t possibly keep it. He said, “We cannot possibly take this skull away from these poor people.” ’
So, with characteristic flourish, he gave it to the Maya. ‘They were very, very glad,’ recalls Anna, who was not so pleased by her father’s generosity, after the danger she had gone through to retrieve the skull. ‘I was very angry because I had risked my life to go down there and get it.’
But, following the gift, excavations were resumed. The pyramid where Anna had found the skull was part of the further explorations and three months later, the separate lower jaw of the skull was found buried beneath an altar in the main chamber of the pyramid. Anna had originally found only the upper cranium. When the Maya added the lower jaw to the skull, the masterpiece was complete. After this, as Anna remembers, ‘They had it for nearly three years and they had fires burning all around it.’
By 1927 the excavations at Lubaantun were drawing to a close. The final items were catalogued and sent off to museums. Mitchell-Hedges and his team had unearthed hundreds of rare and beautiful artefacts, but none could match the beauty of the crystal skull.
As the party prepared to depart, it was a sad moment for Anna. She had lived with a Mayan family who had treated her ‘as well as their own daughter’ and she had ‘shared in their joys and sorrows over the years’. As Anna and her father bade farewell to their Mayan friends, the Mayan chieftain stepped forward and pressed a bundle into Frederick Mitchell-Hedges’ hands. As he unwrapped the bundle, Anna was delighted to find that it was the crystal skull:
‘The Maya presented my father with the skull for all the good work he had done for their people, giving them medical supplies and work and tools and everything. And that’s why they gave it back to us. It was a gift from the Mayan people.’
So fate had it that the crystal skull should accompany Frederick Mitchell-Hedges as he left Lubaantun for England.
Putting his overseas adventures behind him, Mitchell-Hedges was eventually to settle in England. In 1951 he took up residence in the impressive seventeenth-century Farley Castle in Berkshire. There he would lecture guests from overseas about his expeditions and his wonderful antique collection, and show the crystal skull to members of the British aristocracy who were invited to elegant dinner parties in his grand candlelit dining-room.
Frederick Mitchell-Hedges used to delight in telling his guests that it was called ‘the Skull of Doom’. He said, ‘It has been described as the embodiment of all evil’ and that ‘according to legend [it] was used by the High Priest of the Maya’ to will death. ‘It is said that when [the Mayan priest] willed death with the help of the skull, death invariably followed.’
According to Anna, much of this description could actually be put down to her father’s sense of humour, but he had been told by the high priest of the Maya that if the skull were to fall into the wrong hands, it could be used for evil purposes.
Mitchell-Hedges was no doubt fascinated as lords and ladies gazed upon the awesome image of the skull. Their initially fearful reaction was so very different from that of the Maya who had helped to bring the skull up from the darkness of its tomb. The rich sophisticated Europeans saw only fear where the ‘poor’ ‘uneducated’ Mayans had seen cause for celebration and joy. Was it that in those dying days of the British Empire the skull was a stark reminder that none could escape their fate? No grand titles, no worldly riches could overcome the inevitability of death.
But whatever their initial reaction, the crystal skull soon held Mitchell-Hedges’ guests entranced. They marvelled at its craftsmanship and became seduced by its beauty. They admired the perfectly chiselled beauty of its teeth, the smooth contours of its cheekbones and the way the jaw fitted faultlessly into the cranium. The question on everyone’s lips was, how could such ‘simple’, ‘primitive’ people, living deep in the jungle all those years ago, have created something so accomplished, so perfect?
Over the years many have been particularly captivated by the way the skull seems to hold, channel and reflect light. For it is made in such a way that any source of light from beneath it is refracted into the prisms at the front of the skull. So if the skull is placed in a darkened room and a fire or candle lit beneath it, the light appears shining right out through the eye sockets.
Others have also observed that the skull has two small holes carved into its base, one on either side of the main cranium. These are just the right size and shape for two narrow sticks to be inserted from below, enabling the skull to be suspended over any fire or light source, and allowing the top part of the skull to be moved in relation to the separate lower jaw. In this way, or with the attachment of the lower jaw by string or animal gut, it is possible to move the skull around in such a manner that it gives the impression that it is talking.
Taking very literally what Mitchell-Hedges had been told about the skull being ‘made to talk’, some have suggested that it may have been used in this way by the ancient Mayans. They have speculated that the skull could have been placed on an altar at the top of the steps of one of the great pyramids, suspended over a fire concealed from view beneath the altar. The skull’s eyes would have blazed fire red as its jaw moved in precise synchronization with the booming voice of a mighty high priest, whose cohorts would have controlled the skull’s movements. The priest might have made a series of oracular announcements, perhaps announcing the names of the next victims for human sacrifice. This would indeed have been a terrifying spectacle to the masses of ordinary people gathered in the plaza below. Thus, some have concluded, the skull appeared thousands of years ago as a terrifying animated talking god-head, used by the priestly class to wield power over their frightened subjects.
But this is assuming that when the old Mayan said the skull could be ‘made to talk’, he meant it literally. And the idea that it was a tool the Mayan priests used to fool and terrify their subjects is hardly in keeping with the joy the Mayans are said to have demonstrated on seeing it.
One person who became particularly fascinated by the skull was the author Sibley Morrill. He thought it had been ‘made to talk’ in quite a different way. He was struck by the skull’s incredible anatomical accuracy and noted that it almost faultlessly compared with a real human skull. But one feature was strangely missing. Real human skulls have a series of marks which run across them, known as suture marks. These are the seams that are left when the different plates of the skull have grown together. Morrill pointed out that these markings would have been very easy to add and would have given the skull even greater realism. The fact that they were missing indicated to him that the skull was not made simply to serve as a memorial to any particular individual.
Morrill puzzled over the absence of these marks and reached the rather dramatic conclusion that the only reason they could have been so obviously and intentionally left out was that the maker of the skull was forbidden to add them, or that ‘such an easily carved feature would be completely unacceptable’.
The reason for this, he thought, was that to have suture marks would interfere with the true purpose of the skull. Morrill believed its primary purpose was for ‘foreseeing the future and affecting the outcome of events’. He said, ‘Suture marks … would be as out of place as engravings on the surface of a crystal ball.’
His view was that:
‘The foreseeing of the future would be handled by … the priest, [who,] after preliminaries that might include fasting, the use of drugs, or both, and after other prescribed rites, would peer down into the crystal in an effort to see in its depths and striations … what the future held.
‘[Morrill concluded:] How effective an aid the crystal skull was in foretelling the future is unknowable. All that can be said with certainty … is that it was probably the most effective crystal ball ever devised, and … it is highly probable that in some cases over the centuries the skull served that purpose well.’
So, what had the skull really been used for? Had it been an animated god-head, a sort of talking oracle? Was it an elaborate crystal ball, used for seeing into the past, present and future, or was it the head of some ancient priest? What was meant by it being ‘made to talk’? What clues to its ancient role lay hidden in those polished prismatic surfaces? What secrets lay behind its penetrating crystal gaze? There had been an enormous amount of speculation but as yet no firm evidence or definitive answers.
In 1959 Frederick Mitchell-Hedges died and left his devoted daughter Anna in sole possession of the skull. Anna has looked after it in her own home ever since, although she has allowed more than the occasional visitor to come and experience ‘the power of the skull’ for themselves. This turned out to be our next step.
3. THE KEEPER OF THE SKULL (#ulink_cfac3a09-73c6-500f-9d48-84f9d6ac37fd)
Through our telephone conversations with Anna it was now becoming increasingly clear that the incredible claims about the crystal skull’s paranormal powers had continued unabated ever since its original discovery. From the moment that the skull had been recovered from deep in the jungle, it had been widely recognized that there was something very strange, extraordinary and powerful about this object. But, over the years, it seemed to have escaped being labelled or categorized. In fact, from what we could tell, it seemed quite simply to have defied explanation altogether.
By now, Ceri and I were quite convinced that the skull would make an excellent subject for a documentary investigation. We mentioned this to Anna and explained that we would need a lot more information. All Anna was prepared to say, however, was that if we wanted to know more about the skull then we would have to ‘come and meet him’ for ourselves.
The strangest thing was that in speaking to Anna on the telephone we kept getting the impression that when she was talking about the skull she was actually talking about a real person. She spoke about the crystal skull as ‘he’ or ‘him’ and used the same affectionate tone that people often use when talking about their children, grandchildren or even a much-loved pet.
We were intrigued, but it seemed that the only way for us to find out more was to take Anna up on her kind offer and make the trip out to Canada. This would not only give us the chance to see the crystal skull for ourselves, but also to make the necessary arrangements for our documentary. This was a bit of a risk, as we had just blown all our money on the trip to Central America and at this stage had no guarantee whatsoever that the film we intended to make would be commissioned at all. But, in what must have been a temporary fit of madness, we decided to make the trip to Canada all the same.
It was during the cold snows of the Canadian winter that we arrived at Anna’s neat modern house in the quiet little town of Kitchener, near Toronto, Ontario. A greater contrast to the steaming tropical jungles of Belize we could hardly imagine. But Anna, looking much younger than her years, greeted us warmly and she and her nephew Jimmy, who was in his late thirties and also visiting, were wonderfully hospitable during our short stay.
As soon as we arrived, Anna led us into her small sitting-room to ‘meet’ the crystal skull. As we entered the room, our eyes were immediately drawn to the skull, which was placed on a black velvet cushion on the coffee table. It was absolutely flawless, remarkably anatomically accurate and exactly the same size and shape as a small adult’s head, yet it was almost totally transparent. It really was magnificent, the most exquisitely carved and beautiful object that either of us had ever seen. It was like gazing on perfection (see plates 1 and 2).
‘I’m only the caretaker,’ Anna began. ‘The skull really belongs to everyone. He has brought lots of happiness to people. I show him all over the world. I’m asked to go here, there and everywhere – Australia, New Zealand and even Japan. But I particularly like people to come here so that I can see their joy and happiness in my own home.’
As she was speaking, I found myself staring at the skull, captivated. The way the light seemed to be captured, channelled and played around deep in its interior and reflected back off its silky smooth surface was totally mesmerizing. There was some strange, almost indefinable quality about looking at the skull, but I couldn’t figure out quite what it was. It was as though the skull was holding me there, somehow communicating with my unconscious mind. It was as if some part of my mind was stirred in a subtle, almost incomprehensible way. I was totally absorbed.
Anna spoke to me, but I didn’t hear. She had to tap me on the shoulder before I realized that she was saying something. ‘I don’t normally allow people to do this, but you can pick him up if you like.’
‘I’m sorry, I wasn’t with you,’ I replied.
‘Oh, that’s perfectly normal,’ chuckled Anna. ‘The skull usually casts a spell over people when they meet him. They often seem to go into a trance for a few moments.’
I lifted up the crystal skull. I was surprised at how heavy it felt. ‘It weighs almost 12 lbs [5 kg],’ said Anna.
I handed the skull to Ceri, who commented that it was ‘deathly cold’ to the touch and quickly placed it back on the table.
‘There’s nothing to be frightened of,’ said Anna. ‘People are often frightened when they first see the skull,’ she added.
‘It’s not surprising, really,’ said Jimmy. ‘Just look at how the skull has become a symbol to be feared. It’s either in horror movies, Friday the Thirteenth and all that, or it’s a warning on a bottle of poison.’
It was true, the skull did always seem to be a fearful image in our culture. Its primary purpose always appeared to be to terrify people or warn them of danger.
Anna continued, ‘People usually come to see the skull in twos and threes and often one of them is nervous about seeing him. But the next thing you know they are sitting right near to the skull. They say, “It’s not what I thought it would be. It’s beautiful.” And the joy comes into their faces and they are happy.’
This struck me as rather curious. Here was an image of death that Anna claimed actually made people feel happy. At first I didn’t understand it. But I have to admit that, after a while, I started to feel sort of warm, almost cosy, in the skull’s presence. I began to think about it. Perhaps meeting the skull was a way of overcoming our fear of death, of meeting the very image of our future selves. We normally try to push all thoughts of death away. And yet here I was staring the very image of death in the face.
As I was sitting there looking at the beautiful, pristine, clear nature of the crystal, it occurred to me that perhaps the very reason why the skull had been carved out of a transparent material was so that it did not represent any one person. It could be anyone’s skull. Perhaps that was it – the skull was meant to represent each and every one of us. After all, each of us has a skull within us, buried under our skin, and one day that will be all that will be left of us. So, of all the symbols available to humanity, what could be more universal than a skull? For it is a symbol that speaks to every living person.
As I examined the skull, its smooth contours and hollow eye sockets, I thought about how I would one day die and that I too would be little more than an empty skull. Not only me, but everyone I knew and cared about would go the same sad way. I wondered if perhaps that was the purpose of the crystal skull, to remind each of us of our own mortality and of the very short time that each of us has as a living being on this Earth.
But there seemed to be more to it than that. In any case, who needs a reminder that they are going to die? Surely that couldn’t be the only reason for making the skull. If it was, then it was a bizarre and macabre one.
I held up the separate jaw-bone. It was beautifully crafted, with each tooth picked out in fine detail. Perhaps the skull only seemed macabre to me because of the attitude I had towards death, because it was something that I didn’t want to acknowledge. As I slotted the separate jaw-bone carefully back on to the skull, it suddenly struck me that that stark, cold image of death actually concealed a powerful message: it reminds us that we are alive! I remembered something I had heard somewhere – that it is often only when people are closest to death, when they are in a sense staring death right in the face, that they feel fully alive and able to truly appreciate life. Could it be that the crystal skull was also here to help us appreciate life?
I moved the skull around, watching the way in which it caught the light. Had it been designed so that as we look upon its cool chiselled contours we are reminded of the feel of the soft skin on our own faces and the warm pulse than runs through our veins?
But there was still something further, something about the skull’s transparent nature. For this was an image of death that you could almost see through, right to the other side. It was as if this death’s head was telling us that death is actually something that we can transcend, something we can go through and come out the other side.
I put the crystal skull back on its velvet cushion on the coffee table, next to a framed black-and-white photograph of Frederick Mitchell-Hedges. Anna was just beginning to tell Ceri that her own good health and longevity were all thanks to the crystal skull. I had to admit, she was a very spritely 88-year-old with unusual amounts of energy. ‘The skull gives you health, happiness and joy of life,’ she explained. ‘He is always in my room, even when I am sleeping. I know the skull protects me. All through my life he has protected me.’
Ceri drew my attention to the tiny bubbles she had noticed deep inside the crystal skull. They were laid out in softly curving planes, glittering within the body of the crystal like tiny stars within a distant solar system on a very clear starry night. It was amazing to think that these tiny bubbles must have been trapped in the crystal as it was being formed many millions of years ago.
As I gazed on, I couldn’t help getting the feeling that there was still far more to the crystal skull than I had so far been able to fathom. It was more than just a reminder of our own mortality. There was something else, something beyond that. But it seemed that the real significance of the crystal skull was as yet intangible to me.
Anna was discussing the visitors who came to see the skull. ‘The skull brings people together in many, many ways. It’s always a happiness for me to show it to people, to see the joy it brings them. So many people come, sometimes as many as 14 people, sometimes 18. I have a lot of Indian people. American Indians and Canadian Indians stay with the skull for hours and I can’t tell them, “Well, it’s time for you to go.” The skull is loved very much by everyone who comes to see it. I’ve even had the actress Shirley Maclaine come to work with the skull.
‘I welcome people because it’s a way of giving a little happiness and really, it’s the skull that does that. I call it “the Skull of Love,” just as the Mayans would think of it.’
‘The sun has come out,’ said Jimmy. We looked out through the windows to see pale wintry sunshine on the road outside. Jimmy offered to show us how the skull responded to sunlight so we followed him out into the garden.
I was fascinated by the way that the skull reacted to light. It appeared completely different depending on how it was lit, almost as if its face were changing, and as it was changing so too were the patterns and refractions of the light inside. I held it up to the sunlight. Although the sun was not particularly bright, the effects on the skull were none the less beautiful. The prismatic qualities of the crystal created a display of reflections that showed quite clearly all the different colours of the rainbow. It was stunningly beautiful.
I was interested to know how the skull looked in really bright sunshine. ‘Well, it gave me a shock,’ said Anna, as we settled back down with a pot of tea. She told us how she had been showing the skull to a group of schoolchildren. She had put it on its cushion and then turned her back to talk for a few minutes, only to hear the children shrieking, ‘It’s smoking, madam!’ Anna turned around to see that the cushion was beginning to catch fire.
Jimmy explained that the prismatic qualities of the crystal are such that if the sun’s rays are very strong and fall at a particular angle onto the back of the skull, they are focused and condensed and appear as a bright, sharp beam of light out of the skull’s eyes, nose and mouth. ‘If this happens for more than a few minutes then the skull can actually start a fire,’ he added.
‘This was one of the things that the Mayans used the skull for,’ said Anna.
We were interested to know exactly what the skull’s uses had been.
‘The Mayans used the skull for many things, but particularly for healing,’ said Anna. ‘If you are ever worried or not feeling well or anything like that, you just go to the skull and it gives you health, happiness and joy of life.’ She continued, ‘I have a tremendous amount of letters. I love to read those letters from people who are being healed by it.’
