CAN THE DIAL OF DESTINY TURN BACK THE NEXT ICE AGE?

 Hollywood's bullwhip and bad hat franchise has advanced from         recycling plastic maguffins to making them up out of thin air.

The Dial Of Destiny's maguffin is an Anti-Antikythera Machine a step down from the lucite noggin  Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull's borrowed from the National Inquirer

The rediscovery of the lost jade mines of the Olmecs  was reported in in the December 2001 issue of the archaeological journal  Antiquity.

After the invasion of the Halls of Montezuma  by the forces of Napoleon III, it was easy for the recycling of ancient rock crystal beads to grew into the production of  upscale forgeries  Reflecting antiquarian taste at home, the well-heeled courtiers of Mexico’s short-lived Emperor, Maximilian von Hapsburg asked for, and got, crystal skulls, some made by re-carving ancient quartz beads, and others made to order from freshly imported Brazilian rock crystal. They ranged  from leering golf balls to the momento mori the size of a grapefruit that still holds up the base of a Gothic Revival crucifix in a Paris museum.

Despite the  bogus modern crystal items, the ancient Aztecs did produce crystal skulls, but none much larger than a walnut- about as big as rock crystal comes on the turf of Mesoamerica's ancient civilizations. After losing their jade sources in the dark ages following the Maya collapse, the Aztecs turned to turquoise skulls made by embellishing real ones with  bits of  turquoise stuck to the bone with fragrant Maya copal incense glue. 

 

In perspective, it took 23 years and five seasons by Land Rover, foot and horseback for the field director of the Peabody Museum’s Mesoamerican Jade Project to encounter a grand total of four tarantula, three salt water crocodiles, two really cute coral snakes, and one jaguar.

 

As the Peabody's HR department frowns on bullwhips, the only irate grave robber to fire a pistol at the field director at close range was deterred from further mayhem by offering to buy him a beer.