Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

There is some truth behind the most recent addition to the Indiana Jones' Movies. It was 16 years ago when a considerably heavy package was sent anonymously to the Smithsonian Institution. Inside the package was, "an eerie, milky-white crystal skull considerably larger than a human head." (quoted from http://www.archaeologyj.org/0805/etc/indy.html) The curator of the Hispanic-American collections asked a certain expert on Mexican archaeology, Jane MacLaren Walsh if she knew anything about the topic of interest. She told him all she knew about a crystal skull being displayed in the British Museum, and some other smaller skulls the Smithsonian had displayed before. Walsh also told him that it would most certainly be accepted into the anthropology collections if it turned out to be an authentic pre-Columbian Mesoamerican skull. Crystal skulls have gone through much scrutiny, but they also have invoked much use of the imagination, due to their "mysterious" nature. The origin of these interesting objects is usually put into the hands of the pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures. But they do not present much of a similarity to what pre-Columbian Mesoamerican skulls looked like.

Eugene Boban, has much to do with the history of the crystal skulls. He was a French "Archaeologist", and had several crystal skulls in his collection. Some of the other things he had in his collection turned out to be fakes. Boban had sold a total of 3 skulls to Alphonse Pinart, a French explorer, ethnographer. Many of the first skulls had vertical holes going through them. These may have been actual beads but were then carved into skull shapes by modern people. In 1881, however, a new skull was put on display. This skull had no vertical hole and was life size. Even though he noted this skull as "one of a kind" it did not sell. After a affair with Boban trying to sell the skull to Mexico's national museum, he was exposed as a fraud. He then moved to New York and started to sell antiquities there. The skull was later sold there. Another skull was also recorded but now, neither of these objects are known to exist. More skulls appeared in 1934, one that almost had the exact proportions as a skull the British Museum had bought. It was slightly more detailed and had a separate mandible (apparently very special). The skull is now known as the Mitchell-Hedges Skull.

All skulls have been identified as Aztec, Toltec, Mixtec and maybe Mayan. But these cultures did not represent skulls this way. The first small skull like beads were probably fakes. The other larger skulls may be fakes as well. For all we know the truth of the crystal skulls may have gone to the grave with Eugene Boban.

Picture of the crystal skull is from http://www.archaeology.org/image.php?page=0805/etc/jpegs/indy1.jpg

Akkadian was the written language of the Akkadians. But it was not only the Akkadians that used the cuneiform style of writing, it was also used by the Sumerians. Sumerian is very totally different from Akkadian. Akkadian, for one thing was more successful then Sumerian (it died out). Eventually, though, Akkadian would be changed into the more commonly known Babylonian and Assyrian.
Akkadian is a inflectional language, meaning it has several roots that when combined with other sounds form meanings. One root can be combined with many different things to create several words of different meaning. For example, the three letter root "ktb" gives the idea of writing, but does not mean anything on its own. But inflections of this root create words like "kitāb" which means book.
Akkadian is written using phonograms. Symbols representing different phonetic values. These symbols are shown in the chart (from Ancient Scripts). But, because Akkadian has homophonous sounds, the symbols shown in the chart are not the only symbols that could be used to represent the sounds they represent. Akkadian is a very complex writing system, and is not to be sniffed at. There are about 200-400 symbols used, but there were actually 700-800 symbols. Scribes of the time wrote on wet clay using a stylus (sharpened stick), and they had many ways to write one word! Akkadian was one of the most successful scripts, and from it we can learn the history, customs, writing, and science of of the Middle East.