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The Crystal Skull of Belize - Pseudo 97
440 Plays3 years ago
We've all heard of "The Crystal Skulls," but this crystal skull in particular is near and dear to my heart. Found in Belize in the 1920s, the mystery and intrigue surrounding the attempt to keep this find "authentic" is much more interesting than the forgery itself!
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For rough transcripts of this episode go to https://www.archpodnet.com/pseudo/97
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Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker
You're
Introduction to Pseudo-Archaeology
00:00:00
Speaker
listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. You are now entering the pseudo-archaeology podcast, a show that uncovers what's fact, what's fake, and what's fun in the crazy world of pseudo-archaeology.
Episode 97 Overview
00:00:23
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the pseudo-archaeology podcast, episode 97. And I am your host, Andrew Kinkella. Tonight on our show, we are going to tackle the crystal skull of Belize. Now.
00:00:45
Speaker
Why would I want to tackle the crystal skull of Belize? The short answer is how can I not? This
The Allure of Crystal Skulls
00:00:52
Speaker
combines two of my favorite things, which are pseudo archaeology and the country of Belize. Now, let me let me explain a little bit now first.
00:01:03
Speaker
In terms of the crystal skull, I just love the story of the crystal skulls, right? This is an old school classic. We're kind of reaching back into the classic history of pseudo-archaeology. And if you Google crystal skull, you'll see that several skulls will kind of come up. There'll be several famous ones and they look
00:01:25
Speaker
vaguely as techy, you know, vaguely sort of Mesoamerican. And I can't remember, honestly, how many crystal skulls there are, but there's like, you know, four ish five ish. Most of them do look kind of different. Like they, they look like they were made in different places. One or two of them look pretty similar, but
00:01:45
Speaker
Overall, they have sort of a different feel to them. But
Debunking the Crystal Skull Myth
00:01:50
Speaker
the most famous one, the one that checks all the boxes fulfills every need you ever needed for a crystal skull.
00:02:01
Speaker
is what's called the Mitchell Hedges skull. And the Mitchell Hedges skull is the one that was found in Belize. Now, what do I mean by checking the boxes, right? So it is a skull that's made out of quartz. It has kind of an ominous vibe to it. When you look at it, it almost has a glowing aspect to it and it's full of mystery.
00:02:29
Speaker
Right. So it's again, it's exactly what you want. You don't want no second class crystal skull. That would suck. Right. This, this one is perfect, man. It's got, it's got the skull itself. It has a jaw that goes with it. Some of them don't, but this is the full skull with the jaw. Now that I've talked to you up to this super high of the mystery of the crystal skull.
00:02:52
Speaker
I'm going to now ruin it right off the bat and tell you it's a big fat fake. Oh yeah. And all of them, all of them are fakes. All of them are obvious, hilarious fakes, right? Now I understand why you'd feel a little bit differently about it because you hear about this stuff so much. So many things in pseudo archaeology are like this where
00:03:21
Speaker
It's just plastered over the media so much. And again, some of these things, they just never go away. They kind of reinvent themselves every decade or two. And the crystal skull is one of those. Again, I understand if you feel differently and that's okay, but realize that it's completely fake. And the fun here is not in the question of, oh my God, is it fake or not? Of course it's fake.
00:03:48
Speaker
But the fun is in the real story and specifically the true mass of lies and fraud that are inner woven in this story. I swear
Kinkella's Connection to Belize
00:04:02
Speaker
to God, you guys, there is so much lies in this that I worry about what I'm telling you. I'm hoping I got all the facts straight because I know in the past I haven't.
00:04:13
Speaker
And we'll explore that. We'll explore like the earlier version of this story I used to tell. And it was fun to learn about it a little bit because I realized I'd been doing it a little bit wrong. I literally got lost in all the lies. So there's the crystal skull situation, right? Ah, it's great. Now, but I said there were two parts about this. I really like I like crystal skulls.
00:04:40
Speaker
And I love Belize. So the country where this was found in is Belize, Central America. It's just down past Mexico. If you look on the world map and you look at the United States, you look over towards Florida, right below Florida, you'll see the Yucatan Peninsula. That's the big bump on the bottom of Mexico.
00:05:05
Speaker
And on the right-hand side of that bump, that's where Belize is. Belize is a small country. It has around a population of about 400,000 or so. It's about the size of the state of Connecticut. It's pretty small, but it's right there in the Maya heartland. Guatemala is directly to the west of Belize.
00:05:25
Speaker
But it is part of that Maya world. So the reason I know it so well is that's where I did all of my master's thesis and dissertation research. I've spent 17 field seasons.
00:05:37
Speaker
in Belize, so I know Belize, right? Belize is a place that I absolutely hold close to my heart. And when I find pseudo-archaeology stories that go with Belize, I'm the first one with my hand up. You know, I'm like, oh, man, I'm telling this one. So how does Belize work into this? Well, this story has connections to Britain.
00:06:06
Speaker
And Belize used to be a British colony. It used to be called British Honduras and actually Belize achieved its independence only in 1981. Pretty pretty recent. But even to this day, you see connections to England. Right. The queen is still on the money in Belize and Belize is part of the Commonwealth. And so you will find products from the the British Commonwealth in Belize. Right. Part of that.
00:06:36
Speaker
part of that world. Now Belize not only has the deep jungle where the Maya sites are located, it has very large Maya sites with every cliche that
The Myth of the Crystal Skull Discovery
00:06:45
Speaker
you would like, pyramids in the jungle, hard to find, various jungle diseases, all the stuff of every famous adventure story. Belize also has an extremely beautiful coastline. It's on the Caribbean and there's a bunch of little islands off the coast called the Keys.
00:07:05
Speaker
If you're working in Belize as an archaeologist, maybe you're in the jungle for a couple of weeks and you get a bunch of mosquito bites and stuff and you're just really hot and sweaty. Maybe you come out for a weekend out to the Keys, out to these little islands where you can get some Caribbean breeze and your mosquito bites heal a little bit. And it's just really, really nice. Belize has the second largest barrier reef in the world.
00:07:32
Speaker
So those of you who are scuba divers Belize delivers on all fronts in terms of scuba diving.
00:07:40
Speaker
And because of its connection to England, Belize had lots of British soldiers who would come to the country for their various jungle trainings and stuff. And honestly, Belize is so nice that some of the British soldiers would basically never leave. You know, they would get married and settle down in Belize because, hey, they're used to winters in England. And they're like, this place is pretty nice.
00:08:06
Speaker
Anyway, Belize forms almost a character to this story, right? It's a background. It's kind of the diorama to this. How I heard about this story, how I heard about the crystal skull was decades ago in Belize. We've all heard that in Belize, in archaeology, right? How I heard the story of the crystal skull goes like this.
00:08:31
Speaker
There was an explorer working at the site of Lubantun, the Maya site of Lubantun in 1924. As a sidebar, Lubantun is in southern Belize, and even today is a bit far off the beaten path. I mean, you can get there, but
00:08:52
Speaker
I've been to many, many, many archeology sites in Belize, and I've never been to Loubantoun, largely because the travel to southern Belize takes a little extra time. So just to color this a little bit, in 1924, Loubantoun was way far away from just about everything. So we have this explorer swashbuckler British guy working there in 1924.
00:09:21
Speaker
And he's brought along his adopted daughter. Now, life for a teenager in the jungles of Lou Bantoon after a while might get a little boring. Dad's spending his day excavating at the Maya site, and there isn't too much to do. Until the daughter, Anna, is her name.
00:09:44
Speaker
finds the crystal skull on her 17th birthday in a tomb of one of the Maya kings. And becomes famous.
00:09:56
Speaker
The end. Right. That's how I originally heard this story. That's the setup where the father has obviously, let's figure it out here, has obviously planted this crystal skull for his daughter to find on her 17th birthday, just to have a little fun because the dad kind of knows, Hey, I know it's getting a little dull around here.
00:10:15
Speaker
Hey, look, a crystal skull. And you can see how he did it. He would plant it early in the morning. Right. Wake Anna up and go, hey, Anna, why not come out and help us dig today? Oh, dad, I don't know. I don't want to not come on Anna. Right. And go out. I dig a little more of the right right over there. Oh, oh, my God.
00:10:32
Speaker
Right. You can see how that happens now. And then from there, maybe just, oh, the fake got about a bit out of control. Right. You know, the dad planted this, just have a little fun. But then people heard about it and kind of blew up. And then he felt too ashamed to tell the truth. It was later found that there was indeed a receipt of the skull that it had actually been purchased in London.
00:10:58
Speaker
But hey, Anna never let it go. Right. And even years after Anna doubled down on this story that the skull was real. And in fact, Anna lived to be 100 years old and died in 2007. So from 1924 to 2007, Anna gave this story to the world and pushed it and pushed it and pushed it.
00:11:23
Speaker
Now, the story I just told you of how the crystal skull was found is wrong. And
The Truth Behind F.A. Mitchell Hedges
00:11:31
Speaker
so first and foremost, I have to give it a blanket apology to all my students from all the years who I've told this to, because while the setup is vaguely correct, lots of the bits and pieces of this story that I just told you are not right. So.
00:11:50
Speaker
In the next segment, let's clean this up and make some sense of the multilayered lies and deceit that go with the crystal skull of Belize. Hello and welcome back to episode 97 of the pseudo archaeology podcast. And in the last segment, we were talking about the crystal skull of Belize and I gave you guys the setup to the story how basically the
00:12:18
Speaker
idea was it was found at a Maya site called Lubantun in 1924 by the daughter of an explorer swashbuckler archaeology guy on her 17th birthday. Now I had teased to you that that is not precisely correct and it's not
00:12:40
Speaker
But how do we figure out what's right? First, we have to take a look at the dad. So who was this explorer swashbuckler archaeology guy? His name was F.A. Mitchell Hedges. OK. And I guess if you're a super cool swashbuckle guy, you don't go by a full name. You go by F.A. Right. So that's who he is. F.A. F.A. Mitchell Hedges.
00:13:07
Speaker
And as I looked into this guy, I realized that I've seen this caricature lots of times before. I think you could call this guy an adventurer, but really underneath it all, he's basically a looter, a charlatan and a ruthless self promoter.
00:13:29
Speaker
And he's not alone. You know, you get a lot of these guys in the late 1880s, early 1900s, right? And that's right when he's operating. He's doing what he's doing really in the 1920s.
00:13:44
Speaker
He was married in England, right? But he left his wife at home for basically years on end. So they were really just married in name only. F.A. Mitchell Hedges had a life just outside of his wife and outside of his marriage, right? He was known to have multiple affairs. And really, the affairs were key for him to continue his
00:14:09
Speaker
looting charlatan life because what he would do he was a attractive looking dude and what he would do would be of course to woo one of the local wealthy women and then
00:14:26
Speaker
use their cash to fund his adventures, right, to fund his trips. And just, you know, just leaving his wife at home, whatever, man, I'm out adventuring. And one of the most interesting bits that I learned as I delve deep in here, we tend to talk about his daughter, Anna, as his adoptive daughter, right? That's the story that you'll see if you read
00:14:51
Speaker
kind of short accounts of this. But the more you look, the chances are that she was actually his real daughter.
00:14:59
Speaker
that Anna was not adopted, but they had to say that because she was born out of wedlock, right? He was just cheating on his wife right and left, and he had a baby. But instead of going, uh, sorry, honey, I had a baby out of wedlock, he instead, in the classic, like, narcissistic, charlatan way, he was like, you know, out of the goodness of my heart, I found this child, and I'm going to give her a home.
00:15:30
Speaker
Oh, man. So he lives this life of like, you know, swashbuckling, lying, which he puts all together in a autobiography that he writes in 1954. So F.A. Mitchell Hedges is going to die in 1959. But in 1954, he he publishes this autobiography that's called Danger My Ally.
00:15:56
Speaker
Yes. And I don't even need to tell you what this is about and how this goes. Right. It's just full of like silly cliches and lies. He talks about how he was like a cowboy in the American West. He talks about how he was just like super cool waiter at this awesome restaurant in downtown New Orleans. And he only talks about riding with Pancho Villa. Right. Oh, my God. And and of course, the theme is going to be how cool he is. And, you know,
00:16:26
Speaker
a life well-lived is the only life there is. Right, that kind of thing. And of course he's gonna mix in working at Lou Bantoon in Belize.
00:16:34
Speaker
And he's going to gin up the crystal skull and the digging. And you know, in his account, the crystal skull is going to be found on the top of the pyramid. And as the lightning and thunder came down and a couple of people had a heart attack and died right as he pulled it out from the grips of the earth. Right. You know, you know, that's what it is. But as we have fun with F.A. Mitchell Hedges,
00:17:03
Speaker
We also have to realize that there are a couple things here that start to hurt his story. I'm so sorry, F.A. Mitchell Hedges. I'm I'm going to expose you. Oh, and I'm also throwing a little sorry out to his daughter, Anna, at the same time. I'm sorry to you, too, my friend. One of the most damning bits of factual evidence in this whole thing is that yes,
00:17:30
Speaker
There was a bill of sale that was found for the crystal skull. So it can be proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that the crystal skull was not only made using modern tools, right? Modern drills and this kind of thing, which is shocking to no one. But the part that's crazy is that the bill of sale is from 1943. Oh.
00:18:01
Speaker
Figure that one out. I'll give you a second. Basically, the skull wasn't found in Belize at all. Now, it actually is true that F.A. Mitchell Hedges did work in Belize in the 1920s. Although, it looks like he worked there in 1926 and 1927, not 1924. But good God, in this story, my friends, that lie is the least of it.
00:18:30
Speaker
So at least he did. He did actually work in Loubantoon. He did some looting and whatever Loubantoon in the 1920s, but. He bought the skull in 1943 and he bought it from Sotheby's and he actually didn't buy it in an auction. I guess the story is that the skull itself didn't sell an auction, but people like this. People like F.A. Mitchell Hedge is always looking for the deal.
00:18:54
Speaker
He sees that the skull doesn't sell. And a couple months later, he gets in touch with Sotheby's and he's like, Hey man, I see that doesn't sell. You know, let's say they were selling it for 400 bucks. I see you were selling that for 400 bucks. I'll give you 200. And they said, okay. So he gets it at a discount price in 1943. Now, when shown this overwhelming evidence
00:19:17
Speaker
Anna, the daughter, of course, doubles down and says, no, it was found in Belize, but then my dad sold it to Sotheby's, but then he bought it back in 1943, which makes absolutely no sense, of course. But that is wild, just that it's not from the 1920s at all. And I have another great piece of info that shows you that it was not from the 1920s.
00:19:43
Speaker
Nobody ever talked about it until after the 1940s.
Perpetuating the Myth
00:19:48
Speaker
So if it was actually found on an archeology crew, even if it was found by the daughter, if it was found in 1924, wouldn't the rest of the crew talk about it? Wouldn't the dad splash it all over the newspapers and stuff? Of course they would.
00:20:03
Speaker
As an archaeologist, I can guarantee you guys that we all talk amongst each other and we all talk about the stuff we found. And if we found something that cool, it would not stay a secret for more than 20 minutes. So the fact that there is absolutely no.
00:20:20
Speaker
talk of this of this reportedly amazing artifact. No talk about it at all until post 1940s, post World War Two in the times of the dad's autobiography. Oh, OK. So the dad buys it in 1943 after all. And then the daughter gets it as the years go by. I'm sure she just sort of takes it at some point, maybe maybe when the dad dies and she takes his stuff. I do think. That.
00:20:50
Speaker
Well, of course, Anna is lying, but it's one of those really interesting times where she told the story so many times, I'm sure she believes her own lies. And people who believe their own lies are like the best liars because they think they're telling the truth and they will then defend their lies.
00:21:08
Speaker
And that is precisely what Anna did for years and years. And you got to realize this person lived to be 100 years old. So she's doubling down on lies she originally made in the 1940s or 50s. And by that point, they're going to be totally true in her head. So what comes next as we talk about this is, OK, what happens after the 1950s? Yeah, the dad writes his autobiography Danger, My Ally.
00:21:38
Speaker
And then he dies a couple of years later. What then? OK, so there's a lot of little twists and turns here, too, but basically Anna has the crystal skull.
00:21:50
Speaker
and she shows it for private parties and stuff. I guess the idea was you could get in touch with her, and for a cost, of course, you could maybe go to her house and she would lay it out and kind of give you the story. And throughout the 60s and 70s, this would happen, right? And the Hollywood elite got into this a little bit, the Shirley Maclean's of the world, went to go check this out. I even believe that William Shatner checked it out at some point too, but it just sort of,
00:22:19
Speaker
makes sense that it'll hit that kind of New Age-y situation of the 60s and 70s. It'll fit right in, right? The whole New Age vibe that we've talked about in the past, like when we talk about Eric Von Dineken and Chariots of the Gods. We see this resurgence of all this stuff in the late 1960s and into the 70s. So the Crystal Skull of Belize gets wrapped right up in this tidal wave of New Age.
00:22:47
Speaker
Now, in the late 1960s. There's a guy who I believe was an air force pilot, but I may have be getting that wrong. He was in the military. He's a military guy. This guy named last name of Horman. This guy Horman hears about the crystal skull and just thinks it's really, really awesome. And he just he just can't get it out of his head. And he just wants to be a part of the situation. He happens to be 40 years younger than Anna. But he gets in touch with her and they kind of become a team.
00:23:16
Speaker
So they continue to push the story through the 70s and 80s and 90s. And they're just adding to this fake story. Right. And they're adding quotes like it's the skull of doom. Or how about the high priest used it to will death? Or we can go with it is a thing of evil.
00:23:45
Speaker
or one of my favorites, it activates a special part of the brain with its vibration. So when you got this, dude, you got to turn the page, right?
00:23:58
Speaker
So they they push this thing throughout the next several decades. They actually end up getting married, which I think happens when Anna was in her 90s. And I think they just did it so that the husband could get the crystal skull, you know, as as part of kind of the marriage settlement after she dies. Really, that's why you still hear about it. The the husband is still alive, I believe. And. What has kept us alive is you have three frauds.
00:24:27
Speaker
You have the dad, you have the daughter, and you have the husband that have breathed life into this thing for really the past 80 years, right?
Cultural Impact and Legal Controversies
00:24:37
Speaker
And with all of this, how do I think this should all end? What do I want out of this?
00:24:43
Speaker
Well, I'll be back in a minute to tell you. Welcome back to the pseudo archaeology podcast. Episode 97, the crystal skull of Belize. So far, we've talked about the backstory of the crystal skull and some more intricate aspects of the history of it and why we still hear about it today. So with this last segment,
00:25:08
Speaker
I just want to talk about what I want out of this. What is Dr. Andrew Kinkella want out of this to feel satisfied? Well, before I get to that, I have to tell you guys that there's actually even more to the story. We have to remember that in 2008, a little movie came out called Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Remember that one? I do. I like to think of it as the day my inner child died.
00:25:38
Speaker
But yeah, it comes out and it centers around this kind of crystal skull mythology. Right. Which in terms of a Hollywood movie, I have no problem with an Indiana Jones movie using the crystal skull. I just I wish the movie was a little better, but I have no problem with the backstory. That's fine. That's what Indiana Jones is for. Right. I only have a problem with this stuff when it's on the history channel. Quite different. But so the movie comes out.
00:26:07
Speaker
And you could argue that the movie company is making money off of the crystal skull. And the Mitchell hedge skull is really the the one with the with the deepest story of all the crystal skulls. Right. It's the it's the best one. And you could argue that. According to Anna's original story. That the crystal skull was stolen from Belize in the 1920s.
00:26:36
Speaker
So in 2012, the government of Belize sues the Mitchell hedges estate basically so they can get the crystal skull back. Right. And they say, look, you're using this stolen artifact from Belize in order to profit.
00:26:56
Speaker
And that's not right because we demand what's ours back. And that's true. Like if you're an archaeologist, even if you take artifacts out legally from the country, which I have done, you sign an agreement with the country of Belize that you will bring them back in a year or two years or whatever it may be. You make an agreement with the government because, as it should be,
00:27:19
Speaker
all artifacts from the country of Belize are the property of the country of Belize and its people. So if you're telling me that this crystal skull is from Belize, well, you stole it and we need it back. Now, you get the hilarity to all this when you look back at the story. The funny part is it's not from Belize. It's a fake that's from London from 1943, but
00:27:49
Speaker
The fakers, right? The Mitchell Hedges family would have to cop to their lie. They'd have to go, yeah, we bought it in 1943 at an auction in London, but they can't. So they're caught in this web. It's hilarious. And of course, this suit is filed in the year 2012.
00:28:13
Speaker
when of course it said that the Maya predicted that it would be the end of the world, which is yet another famous pseudo-archaeology story that I can't wait to deal with on a later podcast. But to my best knowledge, nothing ever really came of the lawsuit and the Mitchell-Hedge's skull is, I believe, still with the family. So
Hope for the Skull's Return
00:28:38
Speaker
what do I want out of this? Here's what I want.
00:28:41
Speaker
I want the Mitchell Hedges family to be forced to donate the skull to the country of Belize. Totally. I know it's not from Belize, but the world thinks it is. So I think they should give it back to Belize and then Belize should use the Mitchell Hedges skull
00:29:02
Speaker
as part of a big display in the Belize Museum in Belize City. Belize has an excellent archeology museum in Belize City. It's actually in the old prison. And the prison itself does have that vibe of like a Caribbean prison from 150 years ago. It's kind of spooky in and of itself, but it's an amazing place to visit. So I think they should, they take the skull,
00:29:30
Speaker
and they put it front row center as an example of famous fakes.
00:29:36
Speaker
Right. And they do have believes has other fake artifacts because they confiscate these things at the border all the time. There's people out there making fakes all the time because if they fake you out, they can make a lot of money on your ignorance. Right. So Belize will find this stuff at the border like a confiscated people crossing the border. They'll find it in their luggage. They'll find it on plane flights. Right. So in the back room of the museum, there is a pile of fakes.
00:30:05
Speaker
And right now they're just sitting there with nothing happening to them. I've seen them. I've seen the fakes back there. And we have a laugh, you know, as archaeologists. Hey, look at this. Some of them are silly and terrible. And some of them are decently OK, where, yes, if I look at it, I can tell. But a normal person, I don't think would be able to. You really have to know your stuff.
00:30:26
Speaker
So I think they should have the Crystal Skull front row center. They take out all their other fakes to kind of put around it and have this amazing museum display on famous fakes. And then to me, it's the perfect end to the story of the Mitchell Hedges Crystal Skull.
00:30:47
Speaker
where the dad, the daughter, and the husband can all be poster children of archaeological fakery. And with that, I'll see you guys next time.
00:31:05
Speaker
Thanks for listening to the pseudo archeology podcast. Please like and subscribe wherever you'd like and subscribe. And if you have questions for me, Dr. Andrew Kinkella, feel free to reach out using the links below or go to my YouTube channel, Kinkella teaches archeology. See you guys next time.
00:31:26
Speaker
This episode was produced by Chris Webster from his RV traveling the United States, Tristan Boyle in Scotland, DigTech LLC, Culturo Media, and the Archaeology Podcast Network, and was edited by Rachel Rodin. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chris at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com.