FACTS & LEGENDS
• The skulls are life-sized and made out of quartz crystal — the same material used in many computer chips.
• Undiscovered crystal skulls are said to be hidden in Mexico, Belize, Arizona and the Bay Islands in Honduras.
• British adventurer Frederick Mitchell-Hedges postulated that the skulls were created by ancient Mayans as long ago as 1600 B.C.E. be found in Mayan temples in Central America.
• Mitchell-Hedges claimed to have discovered three treasure chests filled with gold off the island of Roatan. Only two of those chests have been accounted for.
• The manner in which the walls at Lubaantun (where the Mitchell-Hedges skull was found) were built has led some researchers to compare them to walls seen in Phoenician ruins.
• In the early 1970s, an art restorer named Frank Dorland examined the Mitchell-Hedges skull. He estimated that if Mayan artisans had crafted it, it would have taken them at least 300 years of constant polishing to create the finished, perfectly transparent artifact.
• The skulls are rumored to contain vast knowledge and enlightenment that needs to be deciphered to unlock a number of ancient mysteries. Some mystics believe that only the decoded knowledge of the skulls can save mankind from an apocalypse predicted by the Mayan calendar for 2012.
• The more fanciful purported origins of the skulls include extraterrestrials and the advanced (but now lost) civilization of Atlantis.
