Out-of-place artefacts 11 and 12: crystal skulls and ‘model aeroplanes’ from South America

11 The crystal skulls of Central America

A number of skulls, each allegedly carved from crystal and found in Central America, have been touted as evidence for advanced technology in the past and, much more incongruously, as evidence for unexpected anatomical knowledge. The most famous is that said to have been found in 1924 (or 1927) by Frederick Albert (or Arthur, depending on which of his books is used as a source) Mitchell-Hedges (1882-1959, also known occasionally as Mike Hedges) in Lubaantun, Belize, where the British Museum had been conducting excavations under the direction of Thomas Athol Joyce (1878-1942). Lubaantun is a late Classic ceremonial centre dated 700-900 CE. Despite Mitchell-Hedges’s autobiographical claims to have discovered and excavated the city under an exclusive twenty-year concession, it had been known for some time. Moreover, he was sponsored by the Daily Mail and was reporting on the British Museum’s fieldwork, not running any. He was therefore in no position to donate the finds to various museums in Britain, as he claimed in the 1950s. Even the date of discovery is confused: Anna Mitchell-Hedges recalled its date as coinciding with her seventeenth birthday in 1927, yet Frederick claimed never to have returned to the site after 1926.