00:01.30 archpodnet Hello and welcome to the pseudo archeology podcast episode 97 and I am your host Andrew King Kella tonight on our show we are going to tackle the crystal skull of Belize now. Why would I want to tackle the crystal skull of Belize the short answer is how can I not this combines 2 of my favorite things which are pseudo archeology and the country of belize now let me let me explain a little bit now none in terms of the crystal skull I just love the story of the crystal skulls right? This is an old school classic. We're kind of reaching back into the classic history of pseudo archeology and if you google crystal skull you'll. See that several skulls will kind of come up. They'll be several famous ones and they look vaguely as techy. You know, vaguely sort of meso american and I can't remember honestly how many crystal skulls there are There's like you know fourish None ish. That you see and they do ah most of them do look kind of different like they they look like they were made in different places 1 or 2 of them look pretty similar but overall they they have sort of a different feel to them. But the most famous None the one that checks. All the boxes fulfills. Every need you ever needed for a crystal skull is what's called the Mitchell Hedges skull and the mitchell hedges skull is the one that was found in Belize. Now. What do I mean by checking the boxes right? So it is a skull that's made out of quartz. It has kind of an ominous vibe to it when you look at it. It almost has a glowing aspect to it and it's full of mystery right? so It's again, it's exactly what you want, you don't want no second class crystal skull that would suck right? this this one is perfect man. It's got it's got the skull itself it has a jaw that goes with it. Some of them don't but this is the full skull with the Jaw. Um. Now that I've talked you up to this super high of the mystery of the crystal skull I'm going to now ruin it right off the bat and tell you it's a big fat fake. Oh yeah, and all of them. All of them are fakes. 05:30.79 archpodnet All of them are obvious hilarious fakes right now I understand why you'd feel a little bit differently about it because you hear about this stuff so much so many things in pseudo archeology are like this where it's just plastered. Over the media so much and again some of these things they just never go away. They kind of reinvent themselves every decade or 2 and the crystal skull is is one of those. Ah so I thought it's still oops. Let me cut that little bit out. Again I understand if you feel differently and that's that's okay, but realize that it's completely fake and the fun here is is not in the question of oh my god is it fake or not ah, of course it's fake. But the fun is in the real story and specifically the true mass of lies and fraud that are interwoven in this story I swear to god you guys. There is so much lies in this. That I worry about what I'm telling you I'm hoping I got all the facts straight because I know in the past I haven't and we'll explore that we'll explore like the earlier version of this story I used to tell and I actually it was fun to learn about it a little bit because I realized I'd been doing it. A little bit wrong I literally got lost in all the lies. So. There's the crystal skull situation right? Ah, it's great now. But I said there were None parts about this I really like I like crystal skulls and I love Belize. So the country where this was found in is Belize central america it's just down past Mexico if you look on the world map and you look at the United States you look over towards Florida right? Below Florida you'll see the Yucatan Peninsula that's the big bump on the bottom of Mexico and on the right hand side of that bump that's where belizes Belize is a small country. It has around a population of about None or so it's about the size of the state of Connecticut. It's pretty small but it's right there. In the Maya Heartland Guatemala is directly to the west of Belize but it is part of that Maya World so the reason I know it so well is that's where I did all of my master's thesis and dissertation research I've spent None field seasons in Belize. 10:58.11 archpodnet So I know Belize right? Belize is a place that I absolutely hold close to my heart and when I find pseudo archeology stories that go with Belize I I'm the first one with my hand up you know I'm like oh man I'm telling this one. So how does Belize work work into this. Well this story has connections to Britain and Belize used to be a british colony. It used to be called British Honduras and actually Belize achieved its independence only in 1981 pretty pretty recent but even to this day you see connections to england right? The queen is still on the money in Belize and so on ah Belize is part of the the. Ah what's that called the? um. Belize is part of the commonwealth and so you you will find products from the the british commonwealth in Belize right? part of that part of that world now belize not only has the deep jungle where the maya sites are located has very large maya sites. With every cliche that you would like pyramids in the jungle hard to find ah various jungle diseases all the stuff of every famous adventure story belize also has an extremely beautiful coastline. It's on the caribbean. And there's a bunch of little islands off the coast called the keys. So if you're working in Belize as an archeologist. Maybe you're in the jungle for a couple weeks and you get a bunch of mosquito bites and stuff and you're just really hot and sweaty. Maybe you come out for a weekend out to the keys out to these little islands where you can get. Ah, some caribbean breeze and your mosquito bites heel a little bit and it's just really, really nice Belize has the None largest barrier reef in the world. So those you who are scuba divers Belize delivers on all fronts in terms of scuba diving. And because of its connection to ah England Belize had lots of british soldiers who would come to the country for their various jungle trainings and stuff and honestly Belize is so nice that some of the ah british soldiers would basically never leave. You know they would get married and settle down in Belize because hey they're used to winters in England and they're like this place is pretty nice anyway, Belize forms almost a character to this story right? it's a it's a background it's kind of the diorama to this. 16:33.50 archpodnet How I heard about this story. How I heard about the crystal skull was decades ago in Belize. Yeah, we've all heard that in in Belize in in archeology right? How I heard the story of the crystal skull goes like this all right. There was an explorer working at the site of lu ban tune the maya site of lu ban tune in 1924 as a sidebar lu band tune is in Southern Belize and even today is a bit far off the beaten path. I mean you can get there but I've been to many many many archeology sites in Belize and I've never been to Lo Bantu largely because the travel to Southern Belize takes a little extra time. So just to color this a little bit in 1924 lu ban tune was way far away from just about everything so we have this explore swash buckler british guy working there in 1924 and he's brought along his adopted daughter now. Life for a teenager in the jungles of lu banoon after a while Mike a little boring dad spending his day excavating at the maya site and there isn't too much to do until the daughter Anna is her name. Finds the crystal skull on her none birthday in a tomb of one of the Maya Kings and becomes famous the end right? That's how I originally heard this story. That's the setup where the father. Ah. Has obviously let's figure it out here has obviously planted this crystal skull for his daughter to find on her none birthday just to have little fun because the dad kind of knows hey I know it's getting a little dull around here hey look a crystal skull and you can see how he did it. He would plant it and. Be and early in the morning right? Wake Anna up and go hey Anna um, look cut. Why not come out and help us dig today. Ah dead I know I don't want to not come on Anna right? and go out I dig a little more of the right, right? over there. Oh my god right? You can see how that happens now. Ah. And then from there maybe just oh the fake got about a bit out of control right? You know the the dad planted this just have a little fun but then oh people heard about it and kind of blew up and then he felt too ashamed to tell the truth. Ah it was later found that there was indeed a receipt. 22:11.89 archpodnet The skull that it had actually been purchased in London but hey Anna never let it go right? and even years after Anna doubled down on this story that the skull was real and in fact, Anna lived to be 100 years old and died in 2007 so from 1924 to 2007 Anna gave this story to the world and pushed it and pushed it and pushed it now. The story I just told you. Of how the crystal skull was found is wrong and so first and foremost I have to give it a blanket apology to all my students from all the years who I've told this to because while the setup is vaguely correct. Lots. Of the bits and pieces of this story that I just told you are not right so in the next segment. Let's clean this up and make some sense of the multilayered lies and deceit that go. With the crystal skull of Belize.