The Mitchell-Hedges Skull or the Skull of Doom

The Mitchell-Hedges skull is a clear quartz crystal skull that weighs about 5 Kilograms. The skull is very realistic and even has a detachable jaw.

The occult story goes this way: “The Skull of Doom” was found by then 17 year old Anna Mitchell-Hedges in the 1920’s in the Mayan City of Lubaantun in Central America. Young Anna had accompanied her adaptive father F.A. Mitchell-Hedges who was there searching for the ruins of Atlantis.

The Mitchell-Hedges, both father and daughter, make many claims about the skull. They say that the skull is over 3600 years old and was used by The High Priest of the Mayas in secret and arcane rites. The High Priest could literally will people to death with the skull. They claim that it took 150 years to carve and polish the skull. The pair also called the skull evil.

In 1970, Anna allowed the skull to be examined and several more interesting properties were supposedly discovered. These include that it could be used for srying, or remote viewing, and the skull also emits different lights and sounds based on the relative position of the planets.

The real story is somewhat different. There is no evidence that Anna was even in Belize in the 1920s. It seems that Mitchell-Hedges himself said he had found the skull in the 1930s, not that Anna had found it in the 1920s. In fact, none of Mitchell-Hedges’ writings even mention the skull before 1943, some twenty years after its supposed discovery. It is also clear that the elder Mitchell-Hedges actually bought the skull at a Sotheby’s auction in 1943 for £400.

Over the course of writing two books and giving newspaper interviews the story changed somewhat and also grew in the telling. It wasn’t until 1964 that Anna made the claim that she had actually found the skull in 1928.

Recently Jane MacLaren Walsh of the Smithsonian published an article in the online version “Archaeology” in which she states categorically that she closely examined the “Skull of Doom” including using high powered microscopes and a CT scanner and she concluded that “the skull is not a Maya artifact but was carved with high-speed, modern, diamond-coated lapidary tools….It is not unreasonable to conclude that the Mitchell-Hedges skull, which first appeared in 1933, was also created within a short time of its debut.”

The story of the ‘Skull of Doom” is an excellent example of how a good story will fly in the face of all scientific evidence to the contrary.

Sources:

Joe Nickel, with John F. Fischer, “Secrets of the Supernatural: Investigating the World’s Occult Mysteries”, (New York: Prometheus Books, 1991).

Jane MacLaren Walsh, “The Skull of Doom” http://www.archaeology.org/online/ features/mitchell_hedges/

http://crystalinks.com/crystalskulls.html

Evidence of the Existence of Atlantis

Let us be clear: There is no archaeological evidence for the existence of any place called Atlantis. There is no city remains, no walls, not even a potshard that has anything to do with the mythical Atlantis.

The sole and primary source for the legend of Atlantis is the dialogs of Plato. In Timaeus, Plato gives the location and describes in some detail the geography and history of Atlantis. In Critias, Plato tells us that Atlantis became an aggressive power, launching wars conquest and enslaving many people in and around the known world at that time. In a final desperate battle an alliance of Free states, lead by Athens defeated the Atlantean forces. Then, the gods disgusted by the immoral conduct of the Atlanteans wiped the vast island off the face of the Earth in a day and night, using earthquakes and tidal waves to scour the place clean and causing the island to sink below the waves.

Timaeus and Critias followed Plato’s Republic in order of composition. It is clear that Plato was making a political point in his story of Atlantis. In the Republic, he described what he considered to be the ideal society. In the story of Atlantis, Plato offers the counter example and tells what happens when societies become corrupt.

The modern myth of Atlantis was created by Ignatius Loyola Donnelly in Atlantis: The Antediluvian World published in 1882. It is in this work we see the start of modern Atlantis myth. Donnelly’s Atlanteans were god-men, that when their homeland was destroyed moved into other parts of the world and became the models for gods, demi-gods and legendary kings and queens.

Further Helena Blavatsky, glomming on to Donnelly’s ideas, created the notion that the Atlanteans also had airplanes and explosives and were otherwise highly advanced. So-called “Psychic” healer Edgar Cayce claimed to have had psychic knowledge of Atlantean texts which assisted him in his prophecies and cures.

This is of course pure pseudo-history, with no kind of evidence supporting this theory. As one scholar puts it: “It is only in modern times that people have taken the Atlantis story seriously; no one did so in antiquity.”*

The latest and most reasonable theory is that the story of Atlantis was inspired by the eruption of Thera, now called Santorini, and the subsequent fall of the advance Minoan culture on the island of Crete.

*Alan Cameron, Greek Mythography in the Roman World, Oxford University Press (2004) p. 124

Sources:

Alan Cameron, Greek Mythography in the Roman World, Oxford University Press (2004)

Garrett G. Fagan, Archaeological Fantasies: How Pseudoarchaeology Misrepresents the Past and Misleads the Public Routledge (2006)

Assessing the Authenticity of the “Bosnian Pyramids”

According to Semir Osmanagic, a self-educated archeologist and so called “pyramid expert”, the oldest and largest pyramid in the world is over 12,000 years old and is located just outside the Bosnian village of Visoko. Osmanagic also claims to have found between 5 and 9 other pyramids in the same area. He quickly named the largest of the group “the Pyramid of the Sun” and in April 2006 started to excavate.

Osmanagic claims that a group of international archeologist helped to dig the site and he and his team did find many interesting things; such as paving stones and an extensive underground tunnel complex. Almost needless to say, Osmanagic has no support for his digs from the scientific archaeology community. It seemed that Osmanagic’s excavation all but destroyed legitimate archeological finds such as a medieval fort named Visoki, some Roman ruins and older sites built by the Illyriians. In fact, the European Association of Archaeologists put out an official statement regarding the so-called “pyramid project” which reads in part: “the undersigned professional archaeologists from all parts of Europe, wish to protest strongly at the continuing support by the Bosnian authorities for the so-called “pyramid” project” and further: “This scheme is a cruel hoax on an unsuspecting public and has no place in the world of genuine science.”

As Carl Sagan said, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. So the burden of proof is on Osmanagic. His evidence consisted mostly of photos and videos and the so-called finds have many alternative explanations. For example, Osmanagic’s evidence of the extensive tunnels is an old mine shaft 3 kilometers from Visoica and a local newspaper story about children entering a tunnel on one hill than coming out on another hill. So far, no one has found that tunnel.

As to Osmanagic’s international team of scientists, he said: “our team include experienced archaeologists such as Richard Royce from Australia and Allyson McDavid from U.S. . . “

Royce Richards, not Richard Royce, of Australia called the project “snake oil” and “bollocks”. Allyson McDavid has nothing to do with the project and is an artist, not an archeologist.

A Dr. Ali Barakat from Egypt visited the site, he had been “sent by Cairo” and that he was an “expert in pyramids”. Dr. Zahi Hawass, Chief Egypt’s Supreme Council for Antiquities, said of Dr. Barakat: “knows nothing about Egyptian pyramids. He was not sent by the SCA, and we do not support or concur with his statements.”

While it is, of course impossible, to prove that the hill is NOT a pyramid. The burden of proof is on Osmanagic and he has failed to provide any real evidence of his claims.

Sources:

http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/osmanagic/update.html

Harding, Anthony. “The Great Bosnian Pyramid Scheme.” British Archaeology. 1 Jan. 2007, Issue 92.

Schoch, Dr. Robert. “The Bosnian Pyramid Phenomenon.” The New Archaeology Review. 1 Sep. 2006, Volume 1, Issue 8: Pages 16-17.

http://www.bosnianpyramid.com/

http://www.eso-garden.com/index.php?/weblog/comments/877/

http://www.e-a-a.org/statement.pdf

A History of Atlantis

In his dialogues “Timaeus” and “Critias”, written in about 360 BC Plato tells the story of Atlantis. This is also the earliest known account of the lost continent.  In “Timaeus”, Plato told where Atlantis was located; beyond the “Pillars of Heracles” now know as the Straits of Gibraltar in what became known as the Atlantic Ocean.  Also, Plato gives some of the details of the land and history of Atlantis.  Later in “Critias”, Plato gives the story that Atlantis waged an aggressive war in the Mediterranean basin, conquering many nations and enslaving their people.  Their backs against the wall, an alliance of free nations, led by Athens, defeated the Atlantean forces in a final climatic battle.  After that defeat, the gods in revulsion at the corruption of the Atlanteans, destroyed them “a single day and night”, with massive earthquakes, floods and tidal waves that made the island sink beneath the sea. Plato’s Altantis, while a rich and fertile land, has a no more advanced technology than the rest Greek world at that time.

And so the “history” of Atlantis was left alone for about 2000 years. Until Ignatius Loyola Donnelly published in 1882 “Atlantis: The Antediluvian World” For Donnelly, Atlanteans were god-like with high technology and when their island was destroyed the survivors scattered to the four corners of the world and became the models for gods, legends and helped uplift the rest of the world civilizations.

In 1888, Helena Blavatsky, founder of the Theosophical Society and famed occultist, took some of    Donnelly’s ideas, and expanded them. She produced the idea that the Atlanteans had airplanes and high explosives and was very advanced in other sciences as well.

The So-called “Sleeping Prophet”, Edgar Cayce gave many ‘trance reading’ in the 1920’s that told the supposed history of Atlantis. In Cayce’s version Atlantis fell in a civil war between the “Sons the Law of the One” and the “Sons of  Belial” being destroyed when The evil “Sons of Belial” unleashed a crystal beam weapon that sounds very much like a laser beam.

More recently many of the so-called “alterative” archeology advocates, such as Graham Hancock, continue to tout the existence of an advanced pre-historical, even if they don’t come out and name it Atlantis.

Of course there is not any real evidence to support any of this historical, archeological claptrap. All the theories about a real Atlantis is the worst kind of pseudo-history.

Sources:

Garrett G. Fagan, “Archaeological Fantasies: How Pseudoarchaeology Misrepresents the Past and Misleads the Public” (Oxford: Routledge, 2006)

Plato’s Dialogues at www.classicallibrary.org/plato/dialogues

Edgar Evans Cayce , Hugh Lynn Cayce “Edgar Cayce on Atlantis” (New York: Grand central publishing, 1988).