Philip Coppens on the Crystal Skulls

One of my favorite writers has a new article out, all about the Crystal Skulls. It's pretty rare to find a scholarly article on the skulls, let alone one that doesn't take sides. It presents the possibility of them being fakes, but provides lots of fresh information that might inspire you to believe they are genuinely ancient:

Walsh and some of her colleagues have largely presented Boban as a charlatan, but they've failed to report that Boban was known to have owned genuinely ancient artefacts as well as a collection of rare books and early Mexican manuscripts. He had even written a scientific study, "Documents pour server à l'histoire du Mexique" ("Documents to serve the history of Mexico") (1891). Furthermore, he personally crusaded against frauds and fakes, such as in 1881 when he spoke out against forgeries that were being made in the suburbs of Mexico City. Would he shoot himself in the foot that same year by listing a fraudulent crystal skull in his catalogue?
Mentions of the German connection and claims of Boban's dishonesty come from a single letter from one of Boban's competitors, Wilson Wilberforce Blake. He wrote how they should buy from him, not Boban, who was "not honest", and he made accusations that the skull Boban had sold was a forgery, insinuating that the skull had been made in Germany instead. However, no evidence was ever produced for any of these claims, and it is clear that Blake had an obvious motive as to why he wanted to smear Boban's character: he was specifically after Boban's share of the market.

...as one skull, owned by Mexican Norma Redo, is mostly notorious, at least for some, as the skull that supports a large crucifix on its top. The skull shows similar "evidence" of wheelwork, but from his analysis archaeologist Dr Andrew Rankin argued that the skull was sculpted from the same crystal as that of the crystal goblet from tomb no. 7 at Monte Albán, which is an uncontested archaeological find.

...and a decade after the 1970 tests he added to his previous observations: namely, that the quartz is very hard, measuring nine out of a possible 10 on Moh's scale, meaning that only a diamond would be able to cut it. The quartz, though of one piece, was furthermore composed of three or four growth phases, each with a different axis. Cutting it would have been extremely difficult, as hitting upon a new axis might shatter the crystal if the cutter was not careful. (This is one of the main reasons why larger diamonds are more valuable; it is not solely the stone but the workmanship involved that makes large diamonds expensive.)

Experts: Crystal Skulls are fake

These findings are due to appear in The Journal of Archaeological Science:

...re­search sug­gests two well-known crys­tal skulls, in the Brit­ish Mu­se­um and the Smith­so­nian In­sti­tu­tion in Wash­ing­ton, are not, af­ter all, from an­cient Mex­i­co. Aca­demics now be­lieve the Brit­ish skull was made in 19th-cen­tu­ry Eu­rope and the Amer­i­can one even later.

The Brit­ish Mu­se­um bought its skull, a life-size carv­ing from a sin­gle block of rock crys­tal, from Tif­fa­ny and Co., New York, in 1897, ...and a larg­er white quartz skull do­nat­ed to the Smith­so­nian in 1992.

The scientists have concluded that, because the source of the quartz used was probably Bra­zil or Mad­a­gas­car (and ancient cultures didn't communicate), and because both skulls "were carved with ro­ta­ry disc-shaped tool, a tech­nol­o­gy the an­cient Mex­i­cans didn’t have" - that therefore they were made in modern times.

Both assumptions are at odds with those who believe in advanced ancient cultures, but in this case I think the orthodox scientists are correct.