Overview

The crystal skulls are human skulls carved from quartz that were promoted, from the late nineteenth century onward, as sacred relics of ancient Mesoamerican civilisations and, later, as objects of spiritual power in New Age belief. A handful became famous: the skull in the British Museum, the one now in the Musee du quai Branly in Paris, the Smithsonian's example, and above all the Mitchell-Hedges skull, nicknamed the "Skull of Doom."

Claims attached to them ranged from Aztec ritual use to paranormal healing and prophecy. Scientific examination by museum laboratories has instead shown them to be products of the modern lapidary trade. The site lists them as a single debunked set whose objects are extant, because the stones plainly exist, what is rejected is the claim of ancient Mesoamerican origin. They remain of real interest as case studies in antiquities fraud and in the twentieth-century spiritual imagination.