BodhiSeed
The more I think about my skulls, the more I realize the greatest gift they give me is a gentle reminder of impermanence and nonattachment.
I'm curious: why crystal skulls?
Sophie
bodhran said:
I thought of that too...memento mori. Like those beautiful paintings by old masters showing a young woman or man, holding a skull. Wise.
Chiriku
Fantastic question, OP!
I only recently found out that there was a thriving market for small carved crystal skulls and was as surprised as you were.
I had grown up knowing about the historical skulls and reading about their tenure in museums around the world. And then, in high school, I read a work of fiction in which a group of witches find a "lost" historical crystal skull...but in that book, the skull was a conduit for evil and dark power and was described in very frightening terms.
Ever since those days, I've always thought of them faintly negatively and was surprised to see them so widely available on eBay for the modern consumer.
All of the ideas here are great, but the one that really appeals to me personally is the memento mori aspect.
My friends and relatives would never "get that" though; friends would think I was descending into a Goth morbid funk, and my uber-religious family would accuse me of being a Devil worshipper.
I only recently found out that there was a thriving market for small carved crystal skulls and was as surprised as you were.
I had grown up knowing about the historical skulls and reading about their tenure in museums around the world. And then, in high school, I read a work of fiction in which a group of witches find a "lost" historical crystal skull...but in that book, the skull was a conduit for evil and dark power and was described in very frightening terms.
Ever since those days, I've always thought of them faintly negatively and was surprised to see them so widely available on eBay for the modern consumer.
All of the ideas here are great, but the one that really appeals to me personally is the memento mori aspect.
My friends and relatives would never "get that" though; friends would think I was descending into a Goth morbid funk, and my uber-religious family would accuse me of being a Devil worshipper.
Lillie
Le Fanu said:
There are no seriously historical ones.
There is no evidence of any of them (including the Mitchell Hedges skull) being older than a couple of hundred years.
Probably carved in Bavaria in the 1800's.
But I think they are cute.
I'd like a big one.
But some of them are so funny looking, there are the weird smiley ones and the long jawed ones and the ones that look like they are wearing welding goggles...
Cute though. If I ever find a nice one cheap I'll get it.
hunter
I'm thinking maybe red jasper.
punchinella
But there are the Jericho etc. skulls . . . although who knows what exactly they mean?Lillie said:
http://www.pbs.org/howartmadetheworld/episodes/death/skulls/
http://www.utexas.edu/courses/classicalarch/images1/jericho_skulls.html
If I were to aquire or use a crystal skull (which at present I feel no need to do) the skulls of Jericho would not be far from my mind, since I find this aspect of human prehistory particularly fascinating.
ETA: A little earlier, in this part of the world, people used to bury their dead right inside their (round one-room, if I remember correctly) houses with the heads sticking up out of the ground. In response to the original question--maybe crystal skull collecting today exists for some of the same reasons that families left the heads of their deceased loved ones sticking up through the floors of their living rooms, and, later in the same region, exhumed skulls seven or so years after burial and plastered over them to create sculptures of the heads of the individuals whose skulls (I presume) they were.
???
