(ORDO NEWS) — The famous Aztec crystal skulls are perhaps one of the most significant archaeological artifacts ever found in Mesoamerica.
They have inspired researchers to create countless theories about alien creators and magic stones.
However, in reality, the alleged pre-Columbian relics may be common cheap fakes sold by a nineteenth-century French swindler.
The history of the crystal skulls
It is believed that there are about a dozen skulls in museums and private collections around the world.
The glittering artifacts made their debut in 1856, when the British Museum acquired a miniature skull believed to have been made by the Aztecs, though it’s unclear exactly where the item came from.
The British Museum then purchased a second crystal skull from Tiffany & Co. in 1897. It is this exhibit that can be seen today at the exhibition.
Although the skull was originally thought to be pre-Columbian, the museum states that “attempts to verify this from a technical point of view have not been successful” and that the origin of the object, according to experts, is “highly uncertain.”
Other crystal skulls of various sizes soon appeared in the collections of the National Museum of Anthropology of Mexico and the Smithsonian Institution.
However, it was not until the 1950s that Smithsonian Institution mineralogist William Fauchag identified them as fakes, noting that the piece had clearly been created using modern jewelry-making tools.
In the 20th century, several more skulls appeared at antique auctions, including one that was sold to an English fisherman in 1943.
An artifact known as the Skull of Destiny is rumored to emit blue light from its eyes and cause computers to crash, but it was clearly made with modern technology and is quite obviously a fake.
Did the Aztecs make skulls or not?
Skulls feature prominently in Aztec iconography and are often found carved on the walls of ancient temples or depictions of deities.
However, no crystal skull has ever been documented in any archaeological dig in Mexico or elsewhere, and none of the specimens in museum collections can be traced back to an excavation project.
However, countless images of skulls have been found at Aztec sites, although they are usually carved from basalt rather than crystal.
Stylistically, these pre-Columbian relics are usually very different from the crystal skulls, making it unlikely that the Aztecs actually produced the famous bones.
Are all skulls fake?
Around the turn of the millennium, archaeologists began to suspect that most, if not all, of the Aztec crystal skulls were fake.
Convincing evidence eventually emerged in 2008, when an anonymous sender mailed the skull to the Smithsonian claiming to have acquired it in 1960.
He insists that it previously belonged to Mexican dictator Porfirio Diaz.
The largest of all the crystal skulls was given to an anthropologist named Jane McLaren Walsh, who, together with Margaret Sachs of the British Museum, examined the Smithsonian skull and a specimen kept in London.
Using scanning electron microscopy, the scientists found that both skulls were carved using spinning disks and therefore could not have been manufactured using Aztec technology .
It turned out that the Smithsonian skull was even treated with a synthetic abrasive called carborundum, which was invented relatively recently.
Walsh and Sacks then analyzed the liquid and solid inclusions in the quartz from which the skulls were made and determined that the stone had been forged in a “mesothermal metamorphic environment.”
This ruled out Central America as the source of the artifact and indicated that the crystal most likely came from either Brazil or Madagascar, neither of which ended up on the Aztec trade routes.
Ultimately, Walsh and Sacks concluded that neither of the skulls was pre-Columbian in origin, and that both were likely made less than ten years prior to their purchase.
So where did the crystal skulls come from?
Although it is impossible to trace the history of all the skulls, records show that the quartz artifact, held in the British Museum, was originally acquired by Tiffany & Co. from a French dealer named Eugene Boban.
A few decades earlier, Boban had displayed two other crystal skulls at the World Exhibition in Paris, which was organized to display his findings as the official archaeologist of Maximilian’s Mexican court.
However, despite being a member of the French Scientific Commission in Mexico, Boban was not a professional archaeologist, although he spent much of his youth conducting his own unofficial excavations in Mexico.
As far as one can tell, it was Boban who first began to create crystal skulls in the nineteenth century, when the first genuine Aztec artifacts began to appear in museums around the world, and the public became fascinated with this mysterious ancient civilization.
The fact that the crystal skull had not been found in any archaeological excavations did not stop Boban from passing them off as genuine Aztec relics, and most museums were more than happy to believe his claims of authenticity, knowing that the crystal skull would surely attract customers.
Despite this, the skull that ended up in the British Museum was actually rejected by the director of the National Museum of Mexico in 1885, who accused Boban of fraud.
Despite this, the resilient Boban quickly found an alternative seller, and the world soon became obsessed with fake Aztec crystal skulls.
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