Skull, carved rock crystal
date: label: Accession Date
content: 9 Aug 1996
name: label: Donor Name
content: Anonymous
notes: label: Notes
content: Carved from white quartz, sometimes called rock crystal, in form of a human skull with hollow cranium. Larger than life size. Per Dr. Jane MacLaren Walsh, 2008: According to its anonymous donor, it was purchased in Mexico in 1960, and its size perhaps reflects the exuberance of the time. In comparison with the original nineteenth-century skulls, the Smithsonian skull is enormous; at 31 pounds and nearly 10 inches high, it dwarfs all others. I believe it was probably manufactured in Mexico shortly before it was sold. The technology used in polishing wasn't available until after World War II as demonstrated by the British Museum analysis (Sax, Walsh, Freestone 2008). References: Walsh, Jane MacLaren, 2008, "Legend of the Crystal Skulls," Archaeology Magazine, 61(3):36-41. http://www.archaeology.org/0805/etc/indy.html Sax, Margaret, Walsh, J.M., Freestone, I.C., Rankin, A.H. and Meeks, N.D., 2008, "The origins of two purportedly pre-Columbian Mexican crystal skulls," Journal of Archaeological Science, 35(10): 2751-2760. doi:10.1016/j.jas.2008.05.007 . See also: https://web.archive.org/web/20181128182211/https://anthropology.si.edu/crystal_skulls/, and Walsh, Jane MacLaren; Brett Topping (2019). The Man Who Invented Aztec Crystal Skulls: The Adventures of Eugène Boban. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books.
label: Record Last Modified
content: 9 Jun 2023
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: Not Given, Mexico, North America
topic: label: Topic
content: Archaeology
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 409954
label: USNM Number
content: A562841-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Figure
physicalDescription: label: Height - Object
content: 25.5 cm
label: Depth - Object
content: 22.8 cm
label: Weight - Object
content: ca 14.1 kg