The latest Indiana Jones....

Secret of skulls: Story behind latest ‘Indiana Jones’

Cannes: A tale of archeological intrigue as captivating as any Indiana Jones plot is behind his new deathdefying adventure in the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, premiered at Cannes on Sunday ahead of its release on May 22.
“We always find an artifact that is real, that people believe in, that archaeologists have looked for or already found and that has a supernatural aspect to it,” George Lucas told journalists at Cannes.
The story began in 1924 when famed British banker-turned-adventurer Frederick Mitchell-Hedges, then on a search for the lost continent of Atlantis in the Central American jungle, turned up a sculpted human skull carved in a block of translucent quartz crystal.
His daughter, who toured the world with it until her death at 100 in 2007, claimed experiencing strange sensations on touching it and having dreams of ancient Mayan rituals at night.
Dubbed the “Skull of Doom” due to its supposed supernatural power to bring misfortune, the artifact , Mitchell-Hedges said, was close to 3,600 years old. Subsequently other crystal skulls turned up, some finding their way into prized museum collections, others privately owned — and all giving rise to speculation on their origins and use.
“All of the artifacts that have been looked for have never been proven to exist or have been proven to have the powers that have been ascribed to them,” Lucas added. “But there are a lot of people who believe in it.”
But over the past decade experts voiced growing doubts over the Aztec origin of the crystal skulls, one of which is in the British Museum, another at Washington’s Smithsonian Institute. And last month, a Paris museum acknowledged its own star exhibit crystal skull was not what it was cracked up to be.
One of only a dozen such skulls known to exist, the Quai Branly museum’s piece was acquired in 1878 from another Indiana Jones-type explorer, Alphonse Pinart, as an Aztec masterpiece believed to be hundreds of years old, the remnant of an ancient and mysterious civilisation. The museum now says that rather than dating from the Aztec period, it was probably made in the 19th century.
From May 20 the Paris skull goes on view to coincide with the world release of the fourth installment in Harrison Ford’s archaeologist’s adventures. Legend has it that the Paris skull represents the Aztecs’ Mictlantecuhtli, who reigned over the land of the deceased, Mictlan. Reuniting all 12 existing skulls plus a supposedto-exist 13th could prevent the earth from tipping over, according to fable.
The Quai Branly said results of an analysis of its skull in 2007-2008 by the country’s C2RMF research and restoration centre “seem to indicate that it was made late in the 19th century.” The London skull was examined twice, in 1996 and 2004, and both studies tended to prove it was a fake, though the final conclusions have not been made public. But though no crystal skull yet found at archeological digs has proved to be authentic, the 12 located around the world continue to arouse interest and speculation. AFP

SKULL OF DOOM: A sculpted skull carved out of a block of translucent quartz crystal. The Aztec masterpiece is believed to be the remnant of an ancient and mysterious civilization