he's coming back...and I can't wait....who? Well Indie that is who

Yeah...he is coming back...and I can't wait.

Indiana Jones, and I am certainly a fan...but what of the crystal skulls?

Skulls are humanity's foremost symbol of death, and a powerful icon in the visual vocabularies of cultures all over the globe. Thirteen crystal skulls of apparently ancient origin have been found in parts of Mexico, Central America and South America, comprising one of the most fascinating subjects of 20th Century archeology.

These skulls, found near the ancient ruins of Mayan and Aztec civilizations (with some evidence linking the skulls with past civilization in Peru) are a mystery as profound as the Pyramids of Egypt, the Nazca Lines of Peru, or Stonehenge. Some of the skulls are believed to be between 5,000 and 36,000 years old.

Many indigenous people speak of their remarkable magical and healing properties, but nobody really knows where they came from or what they were used for.
Were they left behind after the destruction of a previous world, such as Atlantis? Are they simply ingenious modern fakes or can they really enable us to see deeply into the past and predict the future?

Much research is currently being done on the skulls. However, their origin is still a baffling mystery. They seem to defy logic. Everything that is known about lapidary work indicates that the skulls should have been shattered fractured, or fallen apart when carved.

so...fantasy...fact or mystery. I love a mystery. And the skulls are the stuff of myth. And so, the movie will explore a little of the myth...a little of the history...and we will become crystal skull fanatics...or at least the marketers of the movie would like that.

Me? Well I will of course explore the mystery. And simply enjoy the question...why did human beings decide to make the bloody things? And what is the connection? And what does it really mean? And what are the odds that they are independent acts of random artists? And....? Well you know me...there is an and...and an and...and well, I love a mystery.

oh...and here is Indie...God...I cannot wait for the adventure...are you ready for another ride? I am ...haha



oh...one more thing, from the other side...a little science does change the view...

Contrary to the belief held by many New Age devotees, something that will doubtless be enhanced by this summer's movie, none of the skulls appears to be ancient. Research by Dr Jane Walsh, of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, has shown that not only were modern tools used to shape them, but also many extant specimens can be traced back to the same Victorian fraudster.

Reporting on her 16 years of research in the American journal Archaeology, Walsh notes that “not a single crystal skull in a museum collection comes from a documented excavation, and they have little stylistic or technical relation with any genuine pre-Columbian depictions of skulls, which are an important motif in Mesoamerican iconography”.

The first crystal skulls made their appearance in the early 1860s: they are small, usually not more than one and a half inches high, and the first to be documented seems to be the one in the British Museum, with others appearing in Paris and Mexico City over the next decade or so. This “first generation” of skulls is drilled from top to bottom, and may have been made from genuine pre-Hispanic crystal beads, which are known from archaeological contexts in Mexico; some may have been made as a memento mori, carved for the European market, with no intention to deceive.

You see...sometimes a worm is just a worm. Maybe we just need to believe the worm is a mythical creature...who will wiggle it's way into our collective subconscious... as for me, well I love the myth. But need the science to keep me grounded.

What say you?

Love,
The Lass