The thirteen crystal skulls

The story of thirteen crystal skulls that are supposed to be brought together is a fixture of esoteric literature. It has a traceable beginning, and that beginning is more interesting than the legend.

What has been examined

The known skulls are held in major museums — British Museum, Smithsonian, Musée du quai Branly — and have been examined several times over, most recently with scanning electron microscopy.

The findings agree: the surfaces show marks left by rotary tools, of a kind that came into use only with European grinding wheels. Pre-Columbian working proceeded by other techniques and leaves other marks. On several pieces the quartz could also be traced to deposits that do not occur in Mesoamerica.

On this evidence the skulls examined date from the nineteenth century, from the milieu of the antiquities trade of the day — a period in which the demand for pre-Columbian objects far outran the supply.

Where the thirteen come from

Not from Maya sources. The number thirteen does carry weight in the Maya calendar — the Tzolk'in pairs thirteen numbers with twenty signs — but no surviving text speaks of thirteen skulls.

The story in its present form took shape in the twentieth century, in the esoteric writing of North America and Europe, and tied a genuine calendrical reference to objects whose origin had not yet been settled.

Why this has to be said

Not to spoil the story. Rather because it is credited to the Maya, and because what the Maya actually left behind is a good deal more remarkable: a calendar system of great accuracy, a deciphered script, astronomical tables for Venus and for eclipses that hold good over centuries.

The Dresden Codex contains a Venus table that follows the synodic cycle to within a few hours. That is a real achievement, on a real object — and it is lost from sight when it is set beside invented skulls.

See also: occultism — the term, its history, its boundaries — and the invented traditions.