Indiana Jones, Mystic Crystal Skulls, and a Reality Check

"Real-life skull worship inspires new 'Indy' film"
The Associated Press (May 12, 2008)

It starts:

"PALENQUE, Chiapas (AP) — There is a legend that the ancient Maya possessed 13 crystal skulls which, when united, hold the power of saving the Earth — a tale so strange and fantastic that it inspired the latest Indiana Jones movie.

"Experts dismiss the hundreds of existing crystal skulls as fakes that were probably made by colorful antiquities traders in the 19th century. But Mayan priests worship the skulls, even today, and real-life skull hunters still search for them."

I remember running into articles about these things over the decades. One included the amusing - and understandable - tidbit that the cleaning staff in one of the museums displaying a crystal skull wouldn't go into the room where it was, unless it was covered.

An anthropologist and antiquities sleuth who works at the Smithsonian, Jane MacLaren Walsh, has had one of the skulls in her office for about 16 years. She hasn't noticed any odd phenomena associated with the sculpture.

On the other hand, she has noticed that the crystal skulls scattered across the world have an artistic style that the Mayans didn't use - and show microscopic tool markings of tools that they didn't have.

That, and other evidence, show that the crystal skulls were mostly made in the mid-nineteenth century, to fill a demand for pre-Hispanic artifacts.

Oh, well: The mystic skulls still make a good story.