The mystery of the 13 skulls
Native Americans tell of 13 crystal skulls, life-sized, with jointed jaws, capable of speaking and singing, which would contain important revelations about the origin, purpose and destiny of humanity, and the answer to some of the greatest mysteries of life and the universe.
According to ancient tradition, a day will come when the 13 crystal skulls will be found and reunited so that their wisdom will be made known to everyone.
When Chris Morton and Ceri Louise Thomas hear this legend in the deep forest of Central America they initially take it for a fascinating tale of local folklore. Later they were informed that in 1926 Anna Mitchell-Hedges, daughter of an English archaeologist on the trail of a buried city, discovered one.
This was enough to make them want to know more.
Having found out that Mitchell-Hedges was still alive, they manage to track her down and have the skull shown to them. They were almost hypnotized by it, and at that point the desire to ascertain the truth and complete the puzzle with the missing pieces was irresistible. With the rigor of a police investigation, they hunt for clues and meet scientists, archaeologists, anthropologists but also mediums, UFO hunters, shamans, in a search that takes them from the British Museum to the Trocadéro in Paris - where two other crystal skulls - from the Hewlett-Packard laboratories - where the Mitchell-Hedges skull was examined for years - to the snowy expanses of Canada, from the deserts of the United States to the tropical forests of Mexico, Guatemala and Belize.
Like two modern and fearless Indiana Joneses, they listen to all the legends surrounding the crystal skulls, examine the different theories on their origin, study the ancient civilizations that report their existence, from the Mayans to the Egyptians, from the Aztecs to the American Indians.
Equipped with magical and healing properties and capable of giving happiness to those who approach them, or bearers of evil powers? Sort of very sophisticated computers that already exploited the properties of crystal at the time to contain and transmit information? Coming from Atlantis or brought by our extraterrestrial ancestors? And again: what disconcerting truths do they hide? Is it true, as is believed, that they will herald the end of the world? How could they have been made from a single block of quartz crystal in a time when there were no machines? Were they perhaps smoothed with sand?
Careful calculations say it would have taken 150 years to make one. And then there are infinite fakes, recently manufactured, in Germany, in Mexico, in Brazil... Interesting as an essay, exciting as an adventure novel, enlightening as a spiritual text.
The mystery of the 13 skulls will shock the most rational minds, will make the firmest consciences doubt, will undermine the foundations of the story as it was told to us, but will certainly involve everyone, as in a gigantic treasure hunt.
