Chris Morton - The Mystery of the Crystal Skulls

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…

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.