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Study of crystal skulls in the collections of the British Museum and the Smithsonian Institution

The life-size carving of a human skull in the British Museum collection was made from a single block of quartz crystal (a clear colourless variety of quartz known as rock crystal). According to Museum records, the skull was acquired in 1897 from Tiffany and Co., New York, through Mr George Frederick Kunz.

In one of his numerous publications, Kunz claims that the skull was brought from Mexico by a Spanish officer before the French occupation (1. See references at the bottom of the page). It was sold to an English collector and acquired at his death by Eugène Boban, a French antiquities dealer, later becoming the property of Tiffany and Co.

At that time human skulls and skull imagery were known to have featured in Aztec art and iconography in Mexico when first contact with the Spanish was made in AD 1519. They were worked by Aztec, Mixtec and even Maya lapidaries, and a human skull covered with turquoise and lignite mosaic is displayed in Room 27: Mexico of the British Museum (2).

They were also carved in relief in basalt or limestone as architectural elements, as can be seen in the monumental circular stone relief discovered at the Aztec Templo Mayor in what is now Mexico City.

However, the authenticity of skulls made of quartz crystal soon came to be questioned. Although some are said to be examples of colonial Mexican art for use in churches, perhaps as bases for crucifixes, they may be among the large quantities of forgeries produced during the second half of the nineteenth century, when interest in collecting ancient artefacts from Mexico was at its height in both the United States and Europe. Some of these pieces made their way into museum and private collections.

Staff in the Department of Scientific Research at the British Museum examined the British Museum skull several times between 1950 and 1990 (3). Observations made with a binocular microscope suggested that the techniques of carving were probably atypical of pre-Columbian times. Also, the large piece of rock crystal used for the skull was thought to have come from Brazil, an area far beyond ancient Mexican trade links.

Smithsonian skull

An increasing number of large and small quartz skulls have become known, particularly in recent decades. None has ever been reported from well-documented official archaeological excavations.

In 1992, almost a century after the crystal skull was acquired by the British Museum, a particularly large white (or milky) quartz skull with a hollow cranium (right) was sent anonymously to the Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C. An accompanying note said the object was bought in Mexico City in 1960. The carving, like the British Museum skull, is stylistically somewhat anomalous when compared with ancient Mesoamerican depictions. For example on both skulls, the rigid linearity of features representing teeth contrasts with the more precise execution of teeth on pre-Columbian artefacts.

The arrival of the white quartz skull led to a study of archival documents concerned with the early history and acquisition of several crystal skulls in museum collections. It became apparent that not only had the dealer, Eugène Boban, owned the British Museum skull (as alluded to above), he had previously also been involved in the sale of three other rock crystal skulls, one which is around 11 cm high and two small ones (which are less than five cm high), currently in the Musée du Quai Branly, Paris.

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