The Man Who Invented Aztec Crystal Skulls. Jane MacLaren Walsh

the two men had become. In fact, in his later writings, Boban refers to him as “mon ami, M. Doutrelaine” (HSA: B2244, Box V—Preface).

      The two men were soon working together overseeing the discovery and excavation of archeological artifacts uncovered when Doutrelaine’s engineering corps began constructing earthen fortifications intended to protect the French army from attack. Their working relationship seems to have been that Boban provided the necessary expertise to recognize what should be saved, and in exchange many of the objects uncovered became part of his collection. The colonel’s reports provide details of artifacts recovered from digs carried out in Metlatoluca, a site near Huauhchinango in Veracruz, and another on the hill of Las Palmas, west of Mexico City. In March 1866 he announced in the official reports of the Commission Scientifique du Mexique, “the sending of several drawings of antiquities from the Boban collection,” adding that he planned to transport the objects themselves later via the French expeditionary corps (Archives de la Commission Scientifique du Mexique, vol. 2, 1865: 360; Riviale 1999: 329; Riviale 2001: 353).

      By this time Eugène Boban was also becoming known to Emperor Maximilian and his circle, who had arrived in Mexico in 1864. His initial introduction may have caused some awkwardness, however, since he was being investigated as an apparent draft dodger for having left France without reporting for duty with the “class” of 1854. There are two documents, written in March and September of 1864, which discuss the problem of French expatriates in Mexico, who are referred to as insoumis