This makes me want to go see the movie .. maybe there I will find out where the 13th skull is?

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from various sources ..

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From 20th May to 14th September, the musée du quai Branly will be exhibiting the famous Paris crystal skull to mark the release of the fourth Indianan Jones film.

Presented to the Musée d’ethnographie at the Trocadero by the explorer Alphonse Pinart, it was one of the first objects to be included in the museum’s collections in 1878.

It has long been considered as an Aztec masterpiece representing Mictlantecuhtli or MictlancÃ*huatl who reigned over Mictlan, the land of the deceased. Known for its great purity, this limpid quartz skull is 11cm high and weighs more than 2.5kg

The legends deems a collection of 12 skulls, endowed with healing or mystical powers, that dates back to the ancient culture of Central America, Maya.

Reuniting all 12 skulls, together with a putative 13th, would conjure up a massive power that would prevent the Earth from tipping over on December 21 2012, the "doomsday" in the Mayan calendar, according to one fable.

Twelve skulls have been found around the world. Three belong to public institutions: the Paris skull (musée du quai Branly), the London skull (or British Museum skull), and the Smithsonian Institution skull – the most imposing skull, measuring 25.5cm by 22.5cm, and weighing 14kg -, and nine belong to private individuals: the skull of destiny, the Sha-Na-Ra skull, the synergy skull, the Max skull, the Mayan skull, the so-called E.T. skull, the amethyst skull, the reliquary cross skull, and finally the pink crystal skull.

Legend-lovers had a bad day on April 18 when the Quai Branly said it had found grooves and perforations in its 11-centimetre (4.4-inch) -high quartz skull revealing the use of "jewellery burrs and other modern tools."

The Quai Branly Museum in Paris verifies that a crystal skull once proclaimed as a mystical Aztec masterpiece is a fake. Research has concluded, with a reasonable level of certainty, that these pieces were made between 1867 and 1886 by craftsmen in the south of Germany using Brazilian rock crystal, at least for the London and Smithsonian skulls. In 2007, the musée du quai Branly sent the Paris skull for analysis at the Centre for Research and Restoration of the Museums of France.

Scientists from those London and the Smithsonian institutions had already said their crystal skulls were also cut, honed and polished by tools of the industrial age, not by ancient Mesoamerican craftsmen.
"The skulls under consideration are not pre-Columbian. They must surely be regarded as of relatively modern manufacture," they say. "Each skull was probably worked not more than a decade before it was first offered for sale."

The skulls became star exhibits in all three museums long before the Indiana Jones movie, "The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,"

The skull in the British Museum, was purchased in 1897. The Smithsonian skull, was acquired by the museum in 1992.






These folks here have lots of cool pictures:

http://www.crystalinks.com/crystalskulls.html



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